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THORBURN'S JOURNAL 



MEN AND MANNERS 

IN BRITAIN; 

OR, 

A BONE TO GNAW 

FOR THE 

TROLLOPES, FIDLERS, <kc. 



NOTES FROM A JOURNAL, ON SEA AND ON LAND, 
IN 1833-4. 



BY 

GRANT 'THORBURN, Seed8maw. 



Con.-,.. 

ic; 

NEW- YORK: 
WILEY & LONG, 161 BROADWAY. 

1834. 



Eaten I are, in the jrear 1834 by Ga vxt 

T n the Cierta Office of the District Court of the Southern 

t of New- York. 



'SBORtl VHP BrOKlSO.H.vM TRlNrtRJ. 

\'.in -stfeot. 



\*> 



PREFACE. 



When a man of small abilities, who has 
neve" been inside of a college, sends forth a 
book into the world, he is branded as an ab- 
surd egotist, or a consummate, proud upstart. 
Again, if the world see a man grovelling 
along without a spark of ambition to raise 
him among his fellows, they say he is a mean- 
spirited mortal, and ask him — "Man, why 
don't you have more pride?''' Just such a 
world of contradiction we live in. 

Once in a while, when we see a coach- 
maker, shoemaker, or sailmaker, and some- 
times a currier of jackass hides, set up for 



VI PREFACE. 

aldermen, assemblymen, and even for con- 
gressmen, the world again says, its their 
pride that prompts them to aspire to those 
offices of emolument, honour and trust. But 
the world don't consider that the public will 
is the guide of these men, and the public 
good their aim ; for my own part, I think 
this would be but a poor world, were it not 
for pride ; but then there is so many kinds of 
pride, that a body can hardly tell which to 
choose : there is, for instance, an honest 
pride, an honourable pride, a family pride, a 
dandy's pride, and a develish pride; and 
there is yet another pride, lately got up 
amongst us, which, in my opinion, is worse 
than any of the others, not even excepting 
the last — this is the lawyer's pride, and the 
pride of the bar. By-the-by it would be well 
if these gentlemen of the gown and wig would 
define what they mean by the bar. If this 
thing had been properly understood, it might 



PREFACE. Vll 

have prevented the following awkward catas- 
trophy. 

On a late occasion, when a meeting was 
advertised for the gentlemen of the bar to 
meet at the hall, it was rather ludicrous to 
see these sons of the law met together, and 
another set of bar-keepers also come among 
them. There were, the bar-keepers of the 
Columbian and Hibernian, the United, the 
Independent, and the Jackson Hotels — all 
very decent men no doubt ; indeed I saw very 
little difference between the gentlemen, 
only that the men who bar out justice 
wore black coats, and the men who bar in 
whiskey wore coats of many colors. I thought 
it no wonder that these illiterate men mis- 
took the meaning of the advertisement, as 
most assuredly they were all gentlemen of 
the bar. 

But to return to the pride of the law ; it is 



Mil PREFACE. 

an innovation coming in like a flood, and it 
threatens to overturn all the decencies of life, 
or, perhaps. I ought rather to say, of death. 
The thing is this: of late years it has be- 
come the praetiee of these brethren of the 
brief, that whenever any of their number de- 
part's from this life, you may see one of them 
hurrying into court, his eyes swelling with 
importance, squeezing up to the bench, whis- 
pering something in the ear of the judge; 
the judge rises, rolling his eyes on the ceiling, 
his face as long as a pelican in the wilder- 
ness, lie lets the woful tidings drop, viz. that 
our worthy brother Caption has just taken 
leave of the world, and therefore, that you 
may have time to shed crocodile tears, the 
court stands adjourned to Monday next, at 
11 of the clock; this was on Friday. The 
Revised Statutes do not empower the judge 
to stop the wheels of justice, and pocket two 
days salary of the people's money on any such 
occasion. Next day a meeting is held, reso- 



PREFACE. IX 

lutions made, crape on the arm for thirty days. 
&/C. Now what is this but pride? What 
right has any class in society to exalt them- 
selves by themselves? What do they more 
than others ? Is not a respectable merchant, 
a carpenter, a printer, or brick-layer, just as 
useful in his place as any lawyer ? Now, 
suppose the merchants in Pearl-street, or 
suppose the mrster-builders were to shut their 
shops for two days ; and suppose they were 
to hold meetings in the Park, and wear crape 
for thirty days whenever one of the fraternity 
died — vvhy our streets would be filled with a 
set of idle vagabonds, our stores as dark as 
midnight, and the city clothed in sackloth and 
ashes ; and yet these men have a better right 
to shut their stores, and close their shops, than 
the judge has to stop the sale of justice for two 
days. 

Besides, is not this intended to establish a 
dangerous precedent, a sort of law, full of 



X PRE FACE. 

aristocracy? Thinking, perhaps, that they 
receive not honour enough from men in this 
life, it may be they intend to try the experi- 
ment whether or not they cannot introduce 
some old, obsolete, heathenish custom of 
paying honours to the dead, and thereby 
we will have all the lawyer's deified. This 
would surely be something neiv in the other 
world, and in this also. When a lawyer dies, 
what more have we to do with him, or for 
him, than for any other member of the com- 
munity who makes his money by his hands or 
his wits ? If a lawyer has a head and a 
tongue, and knows how to make use of them, 
he has his reward in this world, and when he 
dies society owes him nothing — no more than 
they do to a master-builder, who, having 
finished the house, receives his money, and 
then departs this life. But this subject is so 
prolific, and so full of bad precedent and bad 
practice, that I hardly know where to leave 
off. But enough, I think, has been said, to 



PREFACE. XI 

convince every man in New- York, that it is 
high time they should set their faces against 
this piece of self-created pride. 

But all this has nothing to do with the 
book, and perhaps the least said on that sub- 
ject will be the soonest mended. If the story 
is a good one, it will sell ; if not, those who 
don't like it, can just let it alone. 

THE AUTHOR. 

Ballets Cove, 5tk Dec, 1834. 



CHAPTER I. 

Journal from New-York to Liverpool — Reflections on 
leaving Land — Seamen's character — a Passenger 
from ship General Williams — a Funeral at Sea. 

Oct. 9, 1833— Ship George Washington, at 12 P. 
M., with a strong northwester and an unclouded 
sky, we took our departure from the Hook, the light- 
house due west three miles ; shortly after we lost 
sight of land. I have more than once known what it 
is to take the last look of the land which contained all 
I held dear. It is at times such as this that the ima- 
gination delights to be busy, and at which she often 
plays the tyrant over the affections, by throwing the 
charms of a double fascination around the objects and 
scenes from which we are torn, as with rapid pencil 
she sketches in vivid colouring all I have left behind. 
I keenly feel the reality of my departure, and am 
almost ready to wonder that I could voluntarily have 
undertaken, at such a sacrifice, a voyage, attended 
with much uncertainty, and necessarily involving many 
a hazard; but in my better judgment I cannot and do 
not regret it. I think the duty has been pointed out 
plainly by the dispensations of Him who directs alike 

2 



14 thorburn's journal. 

the destinies of angels and of men, not to be followed 
with unshaken confidence and good cheer, — a firm 
belief in a particular providence, in that governance of 
the world which regulates, not only the larger affairs 
of men and of nations, but which extends to the minu- 
test concerns of the creatures of God, till, without him, 
not even a sparrow falleth to the ground, next to those 
truths which assure us of the remission of sin through 
the shedding of blood, and which brings the life and 
immortality of the gospel to light. The Bible unfolds, (in 
my opinion,) not another doctrine more precious, or 
more consoling than this. I delight to believe, also, 
that special paths of duty are often made so plain, that 
there can scarcely be a mistake in entering upon and 
pursuing them. 

This belief, with the persuasion that my present 
situation is one of duty, keeps my mind in perfect 
peace, and even emboldens me to appreciate to myself 
the assurance, " Behold I am with thee, and will 
keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will 
bring thee again into this land, for I will never leave 
thee, nor forsake thee." 

Another cause of quietude springs from the declara- 
tion, (which I also firmly believe,) that the effectual 
fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much. I 
know I have many such friends by whom I am not 
forgotten. What a glorious religion is that which 
the Christian possesses I How unsearchable are its 
riches of wisdom and grace. A religion rescuing us 
not only from the guilt and condemnation of sin, 
cheering us with hope, and fitting us for immortality, 
but guiding and guarding us also in all our ways. 
If the religion of the cross be a cunningly de- 
vised fable, as some would persuade us to believe, 



thorburn's journal. IB 

O, how wise the intellect that devised it ! If all its pro- 
mises and its hopes, its fears and its joys, its impres- 
sions and its prayers, are but a dream, its a dream of 
enchantment from which I would wish most devoutly 
never to awake ; and of which, to all who sleep, I would 
most earnestly say, " Sleep, O sleep on '" 

To return ; — when we passed the light-house the ships 
Charlemagne for Havre, and General Williams for 
Liverpool, were nearly three miles a head — before dark 
we lost sight of them astern. The Atlantic was rough and 
boisterous as is usual at this season of the year, with wind 
constantly fair for five days. We were so heavily rocked, 
occasioned by the rolling of the vessel and the wind be- 
ing astern, it seemed as if our very heads would have 
dropped from our shoulders. Next day the wind came on 
our quarter, when we went along as smooth as on a 
rail-road. 

At night the scene was peculiarly fine ; a full orbed 
moon, brushed by cold and wintry looking clouds above ; 
a troubled and roaring sea below ; our ship careering 
through and upon the heaving billows, dashing beds of 
foam far around, and leaving a broad wake behind as 
she sank and rose with the swelling of the sea, and then 
plunged again furiously on her mighty way ; the bright 
moon-beams gleaming on the studding sails as they 
kissed the waves with every roll of the ship, while the 
naked spars above, in the deep plunge of the vessel, 
swept wildly and swiftly in clearly defined lines against 
the sky — all combined in forming a glorious sight for 
the eye of an enthusiast, and one from which I could 
scarce tear myself for the oblivion of sleep. Often, 
when all were locked in slumber, the watch on deck and 
myself only excepted, have I walked and sat watching 
the frantic gambols of the northern lights, the move- 



16 

merits of the stars, and the sighing of the waves, till 
morning streaked the eastern sky with gold. In five 
times crossing the Atlantic, I have seen something of 
the seaman's character. "When sleep forsook my eyes, 
I used to go on deck to while away the time and improve 
my mind in conversing with the hands on watch. Many 
of them have I found to possess strong, but very few 
cultivated minds. When we witness their patient endu- 
rance of danger, cold, fatigue and discomfort, and the 
willing alacrity with which they perform their arduous 
duties, we wish they were better paid ; but thenmoney 
is of no service to them : they are not inhabitants of the 
earth — sea is their element. They know as little how to 
spend a dollar to advantage, as the child of three years, 
when he empties his little holiday purse (with the 
most willing anxiety) of the last ninty-ninth cent, to 
pay for a gilded toy not worth six. As they are the most 
useful class, and as society cannot exist in any thing 
like comfort without them, it therefore is the duty of 
society to provide for them a comfortable retreat in old 
age, and especially as very few of them survive to that 
period. In London they have schools for their chil- 
dren, and houses where their widows and orphans are 
comfortably fed, taught and clothed. The Greenwich 
Hospital is a monument of British gratitude and hu- 
manity. 

To return from this digression ; — as our ship was 
passing the light-house at Sandy Hook, a boat put 
on board of us a gentleman from Bermuda. He had en- 
gaged his passage in the ship General Williams, came 
too late, and was left. He felt very uncomfortable, as his 
baggage was on board of the G. W., and he had not a 
change of clothing. 

10th. Wind northeast, nearly becalmed, the ship G. 
W. about five miles astern. At 10 A. M. launched the 



17 

boat with four hands and the mate, when they rowed 
said passenger to his ship. 

11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th — nothing remarkable 
occurred. Wind fair and every thing comfortable ; sea- 
sickness, and many casting up their accounts of course. 

Oct. 16th — A Funeral at Sea. — One of our steerage 
passengers died last night, about 9 o'clock, after being 
six days out He was brought on board almost in the 
last gasp of consumption. He hoped his bones would 
moulder in his native soil (Ireland) ; but his grave is in 
the deep. None of our cabin passengers knew of his 
situation till some hours after his death. We have on 

board the Rev. Mr. B , an Episcopal Minister from 

England. He was in bed and knew not that there was 
a corpse on board till I informed him in the morning. 
He seemed awfully struck when I asked if he had his 
prayer-book and canonicals in order, as there was to be 
a funeral at 9 A. M. — He mustered the materials, and 
finding all in order, said he would perform the last of- 
fice for the dead, while I was to do my best as clerk 
pro tern., as he said he understood I had been clerk in 
a church in New-York for some years. I informed the 
captain of the arrangement, and requested that he would 
order every thing to be conducted with decent order 
and propriety. After receiving my short lesson, we 
repaired on deck. The scene was novel, solemn, and 
imposing. The morning was fine ; the sun shone bright 
and mild; a gentle breeze was humming through our 
sails, just enough to steady the vessel ; hundreds of sea- 
gulls were sporting in the sun-beams, and dipping their 
snow-white wings in the transparent element beneath. 
Ever and anon as they crossed our path, followed in our < 
wake, and skimmed our stately ship, they looked and 

2* 



18 thorburn's journal. 

they screamed, and they screamed and they looked, as 
if anxious to know the meaning of this dance of death. 
Our crew and our passengers, eighty-five in number, 
were all on deck, uncovered — all watching, with intense 
interest, the order and systematic preparations of the 
seamen. The body was tightly stitched up in a white 
sheet, (not a spot of skin appearing,) then fastened to a 
plank, and a heavy stone appended to the feet. The end 
of the plank, with the feet towards the sea, was now 
placed on the bulwarks about midships. The end 
where the head rested, was supported by the carpenter 
and his mate. All things being ready, the captain on 
the right, and I on the left of the minister, the beautiful 
service for the dead commenced — " I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life," &c, in the full-toned, solemn, and 
clear accent of a regular bred Yorkshire parson. The 
various and intense feelings depicted in the faces of the 
motley group, as they eyed the cloth that hid the life- 
less clay ; the wild screams of the milk-white sea-fowl, 
descending and ascending in quick succession, forced on 
the mind the thought of guardian angels, ready to 
convey some ransomed soul to worlds of light. We 
were 1400 miles from land, suspended, as it were, be- 
tween heaven and the great deep, and only a four inch 
plank between us and the gates of heaven or hell. 
When the minister came to the words, we " commit the 
body to the deep," I sung out, "launch the corpse." — 
In a moment it was sinking in the mighty waters. — 
" Lord, what is wan /" exclaimed each thinking soul. 
We seemed pausing alone on the brink of eternity ; but 
the eye of Omnipotence was there. In the clear waters 
of the Atlantic we could see the white object sink, per- 
haps some hundred feet. I stood on the stern and 
watched its descent. The buoyancy of the plank, with the 
stone at the feet, kept the body erect. It looked to my 



thorburn's journal. 19 

mind like a mortal of earth, descending the narrow steps 
of time, down to the broad confines of eternal space. In 
a few moments' more the rags of the flesh, with the 
strips of the winding-sheet, were lodged in monsters' 
jaws. 

It was a very impressive scene, and seemed to strike 
all present, with a sense of their dependance on Him 
who holds the wind in his fist and the waters in the 
hollow of his hand. 

To commit a body to the earth, seems like cancelling 
a debt of nature ; but though the flesh be as cold as the 
marble of Siberia, there is something revolting to the 
feelings when a human carcass is sunk in the cold 
green sea. But this sea must give up the dead that are 
in her. 

If you have a friend in the world whom you wish bet- 
ter than another, if he wants to see Liverpool, tell him 
to wait for the George Washington, Captain Holdredge 
and crew. We are now nine days out, and have not 
heard an oath from either man or officer — sometimes 
making fourteen knots for twelve hours on a stretch — 
the waves as high as Snake-Hill in Jersey, and neither 
sigh nor groan has yet escaped its timbers. Her vast 
sheets of canvass spread to the sun and swelling in the 
breeze, appear like ripe fields of wheat on Hallet's Cove, 
and yet they are mowed as by a spring, from the tinkle 
of a bell, by the sturdy arms of our willing crew. No 
noise, no shouting, no confusion — all moves on as if 
impelled by him who is the God of order. At 8 A. M., 
12, 4 and 8 P. M. our table is filled with more than 
heart can wish. Clinton Lunch, or Congress Hall, can 
boast no better cooks. Every morning we have fresh 
milk from the cow, without the contamination of blue- 
skin water from the race grounds of Long-Island. We 



20 thorburn's journal. 

have men of mind and science from the four quarters of 
the globe in our cabin, each promoting the pleasure of 
his neighbour. 

Our esteemed townsman, Samuel F. Mott, and inte- 
resting family, are a genuine acquisition to our party. Al- 
ready has the health of his lady much improved. Our 
book-case and books, our beds, comforts, luxuries and 
attendants, are such as maybe expected (only) from the 
New-York packets. 

Nothing worthy of notice occurred for the remaining 
eleven days of our voyage, when we arrived at Liver- 
pool, all well, having been only twenty days at sea. — 
At the examination of our baggage in the custom- 
house, we were treated with marked attention and 
politeness ; indeed to be an American, or a resident in 
America, seems a passport to kind regard and attention 
everywhere. 

In the streets of Liverpool to-day, (2d Nov.,) I saw 
two well-dressed women, having an organ fastened on a 
small four-wheeled waggon. They were dragging it 
through one of the principal streets— at every corner they 
would stop, and one would sing while the other played 
the organ— passengers would throw them a few cents. I 
wondered that the magistrates, who had mothers, wives 
and daughters, would allow so public a degradation of 
the sex. I wished I had Mrs. Trollope by the ear at 
that moment. 

In the hotels, besides paying your bill at the bar, you 
are called on by — sir, remember the waiter, — sir, remem- 
ber the chambermaid ; and also by a slovenly looking fel- 
•low whom they call boots. In the stage, perhaps you are 
drove from London to Coventry, or any other direction, 
to a distance of fifty miles. There you change the driver 
and guard, when you are again subjected to the same 



21 

beggarly impositions — sir, I have drove from London — 
sir, I have guarded you from London. You may give 
as much as you please, but not less than one shilling to 
each. In fifty miles more the same beggarly farce is 
acted over again. Between London and Liverpool, 
200 miles, I paid twelve shillings sterling to guards 
and drivers, besides three sovereigns stage fare. Indeed 
I could travel 200 miles in America, just for the money 
I paid to guards and coach drivers in going from Lon- 
don to Liverpool; and you can't get clear of this impo- 
sition. To be sure you are not compelled by civil law, 
but if you don't submit to this law of the road, ten to one 
but your trunk would disappear before you where half 
through your journey. They will swell, pirffand blow 
about their English pride, their independent spirits, 
and all such blustering stuff, but in all and every thing 
connected with travelling concerns, itis a complete sys- 
tem of organized beggary, from the contractor down to 
the lowest boot cleaner. Old Boniface himself comes 
out to be sure ; his face as red as a northwest moon, 
corporation like a ten gallon keg, white apron, shoes, 
buckles and stockings, bowing and cringing like one 
of his well-whipped spaniels, but most roundly does he 
make you pay for all this servility ; and when you are 
going to leave his inhospitable roof, he sends after you 
a host of privileged beggars; and after you are 
seated in the coach, the windows on each side are beset 
with — sir, I lashed your trunk — mam I brought out 
your bandbox, &c. I was informed by several gentle- 
men, that the servants in hotels and drivers on the 
road had no other compensation for their services, 
only what they could in this way extort from customers. 
This may all be very well, if they are willing to have 
their servants a committee of beggars and extortioners, 



90 thorburn's journal. 

instead of men who make conscience of doing (heir duty, 
knowing that they will receive an honourable compensa- 
tion for theU services. I say tins may all he very well 
if the majority are pleased to have it so; hut why hold 
themseh es np as paragons of wisdom and models oi 
fashion to the world.' Why send forth their Fiddlers 
ami Trollopes, talking about men and manners in 
America, when they themselves have yet to learn what 
it is to practice the first rudiments of common sense? 

Fiddler could travel from Maine to Georgia, and not 

meet a beggar in a hotel, or seated on a stage box. 

This custom of theirs IS a greet annoyance to stran- 
gers; for in addition to all your other cares on the road, 
you have to carry a pocket full oi' change. Hitter would 
it he to put every charge in the hill, and make you pay 
at the bar. 



CHAPTER II. 

A visit to the Tower. 

I HAVE been twenty-four days in London. To the 
man w ho lias time to spare, and money to spend, it is 
worth all the pains to walk one day each in St. Paul's, 
Westminster Abbey, and the tower. In the former you 
read the monuments, and tread over the bones and dust 
of all that were once great, and many that were good, 
for the past thousand years — kings, warriors, benefac- 
tors and destroyers of men, eloquent divines and ac- 
complished females, profound statesmen, historians and 
poets — all tumbled in one promiscuous heap of death. 
In the poet's corner you tread over the dust of Dryden, 
Pope, and scores of others, who in their day shook the 
sides of laughter-looking faces; but now, there they 
lie themselves — O, how mute ! In the tower, within 
whose blackened walls for nearly twenty centuries, 
alternately, was heard the music and the dance, the 
sound of laughter and revelry, with the screams of the 
tortured, and the groans of the murdered. Over floors 
stained, and along walls besprinkled with the blood of 
the beauties of that day, you now walk with the wardens 
in the same costume which they wore in the days of 
Henry VIII. 

To describe my feelings, or what I saw, is im- 
possible ; but while I held in my hand the axe 
which severed the heads of the beautiful Ann Bolyn, 
Lady Jane Grey, and Mary of Scotland, I felt proud 



24 thorburn'h journal. 

that the annals of my adopted country was not stained 
by deeds so barbarous and unmanly. Says I to the 
warden, " your Fiddlers and Trollopes talk of refine- 
ment — the standard ot' refinement is estimated in all 
countries by the respectin which their women are held. 
Now, sir, were they to attempt in America to cut oil" 
the head of a beautiful woman, every rifle, from Maine 
to Georgia, would be raised in her defence." He smiled 
at my remark. He soon observed that, from my tongue, 
he should take me for a Scotchman. I said I thought 
the same of him — it. was the case: and being countrymen, 
he conducted me around, and described every thing 
with great attention. 

I saw in London women, dressed neat and clean, 
trundelling wheelbarrows in the middle of the streets. 
seemingly carrying home or taking clothes to be 
washed. In the markets of London and Liverpool 
are thousands of women, who make their Living by 
carrying home the meat and vegetables. They have 
round baskets which they place on their heads. I have 
met delicate, good looking females, trembling under the 
loads they carried. You may see them in groups and 
rows, their baskets in hand. As you pass along the 
market, you ace interrogated at every step, with "sir, do 
you want a basket:" — "Please, sir, to take a basket," 
Slc. 

It don't seem to be the custom in London to take a 
servant with them to market. 

I also saw a woman on the highway breaking stones 
to Macadamize the road. On another occasion 1 saw a 
woman having a young child buckled on her back. She 
was driving a one horse cart laden with coals, going 
up a steep part of the road, and the load being rather 
heavy for the horse, she took hold of the wheel and 



tiiormjrnVs journal. 25 

helped it. to roll along- till she got to the top of the. hill. 
I thought this was most emphatically: clapping the 
shoulder to the wheel. I thought if Mrs. Trollope and 

Fiddler had seen such things in America, what a fine 
subject it would have been Tor them to make a book. \ 
attended service in many, Chapels, Churches. Cathedrals 

and Abbeys, in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Ca- 
thedral, (the resort of fashion.) In. the former I heard 
the Lord Bishop of Gloucester rend prayers. I thought 
(at the time) that our own Hishop Onderdonk reads 

better. 1 there saw old and young men silting at the 
head of the pews, when the ladies were sitting next to 
the door. 

I saw a black whiskered dandy, apparently about 
twenty-seven ; he was sitting alone, just inside of the 
pew door. A genteel young lady came to the pew :, 
but, instead of opening the door and giving her the 
place which common decency and common sense as- 
signed asher's, he shoved his own ugly carcass ahead, 
and let her sit next to the door. I saw young men sitting, 
and respectable-looking females standing — some of 
them old enough to he their mothers or grand-mothers, 
and some of them young enough to have been their 
sisters. Perhaps it were hardly worth noticing these 
things, were it not that the [Jails, Trollopcs, &,c, have 
the modesty to tax the Americans with want of refine- 
ment ! Now, as far as I can observe, if the remark be 
true, that respect paid to the women is the true standard 
of refinement, I think America is at least half a century 
ahead of these London folks. In short, many, very 
many, of the laborious and menial offices are here per- 
formed by women. 

Wiih regard to manners, you will here receive the 
tvery essence of hospitality and kind attention ; to be 

3 



26 thorburn's journal. 

sure, you will see the h eighth of splendour and affluence 
contrasted with the most abject poverty; but here, as 
well as almost every where else, excess in drinking lies 
at the bottom of this evil. Every where there is the 
greatest appearance of plenty. I met in company, the 
other day, a real John Bull ; he sat puffing and blowing 
with corpulence. His very eyes stood out with fatness, 
as if ready to start from their sockets ; in short, he was 
a real Falstaff. There he sat grumbling about taxes, 
tithes, poor rates, &c. We had picked an acquaintance 
and could make free. Says I, my friend, you look, at 
any rate, as if you got your allowance. He and his 
friends had a hearty laugh, which ended the political 
lecture. 

The quantities of meat in the markets of London 
are almost frightful to look at; besides, in every street, 
they have large butchers' shops, which, from 3 till 
11 o'clock P. M., are most brilliantly lighted up 
with gas ; and, as they have a peculiarly neat way of 
cutting up their meat, their shops show to fine advan- 
tage. Their hundreds of benevolent institutions for 
the maimed, the sick, the halt, and the blind ; their 
multitudes of princely buildings, where tens of thou- 
sands of poor children are fed, clothed, and instructed ; 
their hospitals and churches ; their soldiers' and 
sailors' retreats, &c, form, altogether, such a mass 
of good, as makes the heart exclaim, " such only are 
thy fruits, O Christianity!" and imparts to the mind 
something like a confidence, that a country where 
so much good will is shown to man, will stand against 
all the assaults of external and internal foes, till the 
da i arrives when her palaces and hospitals, with the 
globe itself, shall shiver in the blaze. 



thorburn's journal. 27 

It is both amusing and interesting to see the chil- 
dren of the various charitable institutions dressed in 
the costume of the day, which bears the date of 
the founding of them some, seven hundred years ago. 



CHAPTER III, 

London — its Charitable Institutions — Police — Barber- 
shops, 4* c « 

I saw nothing in London that pleased me so muck 
as their charitable benevolent institutions. London 
contains 43 free schools, with perpetual endowments 
for educating and maintaining nearly 4,000 children ; 
1? other schools for poor and deserted children; 
237 parish schools, supported by voluntary contribu- 
tions. &c, in which about 10 or 12,000 boys and girls 
are constantly clothed and educated; 3 colleges; 2*3 
hospitals for sick, lame, and indigent women ; 107 alms- 
houses for the maintenance oi' aged persons of both 
; 18 institutions for the support of the poor of 
various descriptions, and about 30 dispensaries for the 
gratuitous supply of medicine and medical aid to the 
helpless in all cases. Besides these various establish- 
ments, each paiish lias a work-house for the occupa- 
tion and maintenance of its own distressed or helpless 
poor; and the several Trades Companies of the City 
of London distribute about 75,000 pounds sterling, 
Dearly $375,000, annuall) in charities. The sums ex- 
pended among the other public charities, is computed 
at not less than 850,000 pounds, or $4,250,000 per 
annum. The hospitals, alms-houses and free schools, 
were chiefly founded by private persons, or incorporated 
bodies oi tradesmen. Many of them are endowed witi 



thorburn's journal. 29 

perpetual revenues—others are supported by annual or 
occasional voluntary contributions. 

The medical assistance in the hospitals is the best 
which the profession can supply. The attendance is am- 
ple ; the rooms are generally very clean and wholesome, 
and the food is suitable to the condition of the patients. 
The alms-houses and other institutions for the support 
of the aged and indigent, exhibit not merely an appear- 
ance, but the real possession of competence and ease. 

From some of the free schools pupils have been sent 
to the universities, as well prepared as those from any 
of the most expensive seminaries ; and all the scholars 
receive an education adapted to the stations for which 
they are designed. 

But independent of these 16,000 children, who are 
fed, clothed and taught, you may see 40,000 Sun- 
day scholars every Sabbath picked from the streets 
and their feet led into the house of prayer. 

Here then is 56,000 children, who otherwise might 
be prowling about the streets and learning the road 
to the gallows, snatched, as it were, from destruc- 
tion by these friends of Christianity, and their feet di- 
rected into the ways of peace. In looking at this state- 
ment, which is rather under than over the truth, we 
may thus see what a large amount of sweet is here 
thrown into the bitter cup of human wo. Never was 
there found in any of the large cities of the world, an- 
cient or modern, so many asylums for alleviating the 
miseries of man, as is to be found in London, for which 
we may thank the Bible : besides, in the day in which 
we live, there is not a spot on the globe where true 
liberty, or rational religion exists, except where the 
English language is spoken. Cesar nor Pompey, Han- 
nibal nor Alexander, nor any of the heathen champions, 
3* 



i 1101; ■•• i K'l F0VRN41 

ght of setting op in orphan asylum. These 

mom. I - humanity were Left tor the champions 

erect l sin much in London to 
ihc v \ o am! instruct the mind. I fount] 

J Mic institution by moans of a (Head, and 
\ name But nothing gave mo 

SOU ami BUCh .; tiou of soul, as to w ilk 

imenced ringing on a Sab* 
hreid my way to some distent 

.. or in o\ ov\ street 

I e 1) . i W omo oharitN » some 

IV see thorn in dl 

i hion of the days in which some of the 

■any centuries igo : to see thorn 

oth, reiching nearly to 
the i v s, jackets, hurt' 

stockings, black shoos tnd 
buckles, and whits s under their chins, like little 

iters neat ami clean, with smiling happ) (aces, 
- five hundred in a lino : te em in the 

. of pray or, making i ho vv i in an orderly 

banting and singing to Him who has 
i omo from tl o lips klings; to 

soo soni< times i thousai b« little humou- 

red in this work. 1 sa\. the man 

. end j et his o\ es refuse their 
as the nether mill- 
stone. 

Imitted into the House of Lords ex< 
srliament and strangers hiring i ticket 
>. ticket, but then it is absolutely neces* 
thit > ou b& So as this w ould 

ban I was willing to paj for die sight of 
mi lords. I e'en let the matter rest. 



THORBVKJf' it. 71 

I had read much, and heard more, about th< 
of London; about iharpera, swindlers and p 
daj ; about thieves, robber*, and murder* i 
\>y night ; about cond< mning men foi one shil- 

them by the dozeni every week at 
I was in London a good part of the winter, 
when the lampi irerelitat3 P. M., and frequently kept 
burning till s o'clock next morning, so thick and 
■ olty is the atmo | i long and so dark 

. (bj ill' by, I thought the town looked to 
i advantage af night tl an it did \>y day, the shop* 
and la it forth auch a light, that 

the people seemed animated with new life, and the shops 
howed off to more advantage.) 

I walked in alm< ; and at almoi t every 

liour in the day and of the niglft have been brought 
from three and four mile- out of town after midnight in 
i c;,! , or. <iimes in company, 

but never received an uncivil word, or met. an interrup- 
tion from any one. In the course of my t)USin< 

. day- The aight of ita gloomy 
walla never failed to bring up in my mind the associa- 
tiona of" whole-ale hanging, I seldom failed to ask the 
policeman on the station if there had been, or if be 

knew when there Was tO be an execution : fie always 

answered in the negative. On inquiry, I waa informed 
that Kino William is much oppoaed to hanging, except 
in caaea of murder, thinking it better to baniah them 
to Van Diemao's or Botany Bay, Neither is it 
ficult to travel in London as baa been represented. I 
have rode from Paddington to of England ia 

of the omnrbu es, a di tance of five miles , for six- 
pence sterling, about eleven cents. 
I have gone to find ^ name and number three 



32 THORBURN's JOURNAL. 

miles from my lodging, through a labyrinth of streets, 
knowing nothing of the way, save the direction of the 
compass, and by inquiring at the corner of every street, 
and never failed of attaining my object. The policemen, 
who are stationed in every street by night and by day, 
are a most useful body of men. They are dressed in blue 
uniform ; each man is marked on the collar of his coat 
with the letter of his division — they are furnished with 
a rattle, a cutlass and a short staff. I found them, and 
indeed every person of whom I made inquiries, to be 
very polite and obliging. I frequently have been ac- 
companied by one of them for nearly a quarter of a mile 
to show me the street I wanted. They have also a ma- 
chine called a cabriolet ; they are capable of carrying- 
two persons besides the driver. You may see them in 
every street, and are very useful to strangers. When I 
first entered London, the stage set me down within two 
miles of my lodgings. I called acabbas it passed, gave 
the driver my number, where I was carried with my 
trunk for 22 cents. You will no doubt suppose I have 
been turning the wrong side of the leaf, when I speak 
about being four miles from London at midnight. ; but in 
Rome you must do as Rome does; besides, in this mighty 
Babylon, night and day are nearly reversed, and espe- 
cially in winter, when they have only four or rive hours 
day-light. Very few of the merchants sit down before 
seven o'clock to their dinner, even when none but their 
own family are present; and if company are invited, its 
always at 8 o'clock. I have been at parties here and 
at Edinburgh, where dinner was set on the table at 
9 o'clock ; then wines, cordials, coffee and fruits till 
11 — when we joined the ladies in another room at 
tea till 12. But in the politest circles debauchery has 
become unfashionable. The temperance societies are 



tiiorburn's journal. 33 

prevailing here, but they don't go to our extremes. 
When coffee is set on the table with wines, it is as much as 
to say, though I don't use wine myself, I leave my guests 
to their choice. However, I h-ive seen life in all its va- 
rieties, from the lowest to the highest: its all vanity, 
when compared with the sober realities of a New-York 
or Brooklyn mode of life. 

About the year 1810, when the British parliament 
was debating the question on the policy of enforcing 
their orders in council, and so making War on America, 
one of the blustering fools (for they have fools in par- 
liament as well as in eongress) said, were it not for 
England, the men in America would have to go with 
long beards. Its not the case now however, for my friend 
P. Rose, corner of Liberty and William streets, makes 
better razors than any I have known imported ; — but 
if they can make razors, it don't appear that they can 
make shaving chairs in England. In London, Liverpool, 
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, &c, I used to go 
every time to a different barber shop, on purpose to see 
if they had a comfortable chair to sit on ; but never saw 
one. They use nothing but a common chair, such as are 
used in families. In the arcade in London is the best 
looking barber shop I saw in Britain. In it they charge 
sixpence sterling, (eleven cents) — threepence was the 
highest I ever paid in any other shop; but even here they 
had only a common low-backed Windsor chair. When 
getting shaved, your head hung over like a man going to 
be guilotined, with his face to the sun. I found it a very 
painful operation, sitting so long in that position. This 
arcade shaving shop was a mere hog-pen in comparison 
to our New-York barber shops. I think the whole furni- 
ture of the room might have been bought for two guineas ; 
the looking-glass was about 12 by 18 inches. Were 



34 THORBURN S JOURNAL. 

Mr. Palmera, corner of Liberty-street and Broadway, 
to remove himself and shop furniture to Regent-street, 
London, I think he would make a fortune in three 
years. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Regent-street — Handsome Shops — St. James\ Regent, 
and Hyde Parks — Lord Wellington and his Monu- 
ment — British Museum — Blue Coat School, <SfC. 

Here every thing appears on a great and grand scale. 
All seems to carry an air of stability : iron lamp, bridge, 
gallery, piazza, gate posts, and almost every thing for 
which we use heavy timber, is there substituted by iron. 
The houses are built to shelter the heads of ten genera- 
tions yet to come. Indeed many of the churches are 
above one thousand years old, and they yet look as if 
they might last as long as the sun. 

The shops, especially the jewellers, goldsmiths, 
mercers, haberdashers, furriers, printers and stationers, 
make a most splendid appearance. Regent-street is the 
emporium of fashion. Here many of the bow windows 
are glazed with panes 24 by 36 inches, 30 by 45, &c. 
There is a fur shop having a window on each side of the 
door, the centre pane in each window measuring nine 
feet by Jive. I passed this shop frequently in day-light, 
but it was filled with customers. Passing one evening, 
when it was brilliantly lighted,and seeing only the master 
and his clerks within, I entered. Says I, " sir, you will 
please excuse me ; but, if you have no objection, I 
would be glad to know the size, quality and price of 
those large panes in your windows." As he had placed 
them there to draw attention, he seemed not displeased 
with my freedom, handed me a chair, and politely 



36 THORBTJRN ? S JOURNAL. 

answered my questions. " The size, 9 feet by 5, cost 
50 guineas each pane, made of the best double flint 
glass, nearly half an inch thick, and has stood there nine 
years." The glass is so pure of itself, and kept so clean, 
that at night I laid my hand on it to ascertain if it 
had not been removed. Should this glass get accident- 
ally broken by a passenger, the owner can recover no 
more than 10 shillings sterling. 

v. In the month of March, if the weather is line, 
between 2 and 5 o'clock is the time to see the 
nobility, gentry, and plebeians to the mast advan- 
tage in Regent-street, St. James', Regent and 
Hyde Parks. These parks are open to all, rich and 
poor, and are a great luxury to the inhabitants. The 
broad walks are laid tastefully out, surrounding and 
intersecting the parks in all directions, and kept in 
excellent order. Thousands of carriages, of all de- 
scriptions, from the coach and six to the humble hand 
cart, containing the hopeful shoots of some rising 
family ; thousands of ladies and gentlemen, mounted 
on ass, mule, or horse, and thousands of all descriptions, 
shapes, shades, sex, sizes, age, and colours, on foot. — 
The walks are wide enough for carriages to pass one 
another. Here you may see enter a coach with six 
horses ; the first and second horses on the left hand side 
are bestrode by two out riders, in top boots and spurs, 
red velvet breeches, yellow waistcoat, sky blue round 
jacket with red collar, dark blue velvet cap with gold 
bands, and each havinga short whipin his hand; besides, 
there sits on a lofty coach box a fine jolly red faced 
looking mortal, with a powdered wig on his head, and 
a large box coat on his back, having the reins and a 
long whip in his hands : beside him sits a well dressed, 
good looking woman, about 26 years of age — this is 
our waiting maid; behind the coach stands two very 



thorburn's journal. 37 

handsome men in much the same dress, wigs, and 
livery, each of them holding a black rod in his hand 
about eight feet long; when the coach stops, they jump 
down and take their stand at each door of the coach, 
not knowing whether my lady may get out right or 
left. When my lady enters a house or store, they take 
their stand on the right and left of the door, with the 
rods in their hands, and wait her return. Now this 
must be my Lord B's carriage; (but we are still in the 
park.) Inside of the coach sits my lord and lady with 
their two daughters. My lord looks old at fifty, and my 
lady at forty-five looks thin and withered, the effects of 
high living and keeping unseasonable hours. She, 
however, wears a wig and curls made of young black 
hair, which reminds you of a sheep in lamb's clothing. 
The young ladies are looking out at each window, to 
see if they can see any body, or to see if any body can 
see them. You may also see some hundreds of girls, 
from four to fourteen, trundling hoops over the smooth 
grass in the beautiful parks. This is a favourite sport, 
but rather ludicrous. Had Mrs. Trollope seen this among 
our field sports in America, she would have written ten 
pages to prove that the thing was extremely vulgar. 

In this (Hyde) Park, they have erected an earthen 
mound, nearly twenty feet high. On the top of this 
mound is a monument in honour of Lord Wellington ; 
it is of cast metal. They say it represents Achilles, but 
it looked to me like a great big black man, with the lid 
of a soup pot in his hand. However, when you take 
your stand on this mound on a fine day, you may see 
before you the whole beauty and fashion of England — 
royalty, gentry, nobility, and plebeiandry. But with 
very, very few exceptions, the servant men are de- 
cidedly better made, and far better looking than 

4 



3S ruoKiuuN's .nuuNAi. 

their noble masters. It is an undisputed fact, that the 

finest men ami women in Britain are engaged in the 
corps domestique. 

n Lord Wellington's palace stands in the corner of 
\\ le Park ami Piccadilly. The back windows- look out 

- monument aforesaid. The front window 
all covered outside with iron blinds, to prevent the mob 
from breaking his ^lass Here wc Bee the mutability 
ot" fortune* Sixteen \ ears ago in- ami his carriage w ere 
dragged in triumph through the now he walks 

\ Then his taee was as the light ot" the 
sun among them - now the Light of the sk\ is shut out 
from his dwelling with iron blimls arulbars. Mob like, 
when led by political rascals — hesanua to-day, ami 
CrUClfy to-morrow 

I \isitcd the British Museum. It was founded in the 
sixteenth century. It is open to the public three 
in the week gratis. Yon write your name ami place 
ot" abode in a book, and then pass in. It is kept in a 

large and handsome building. It is a wonderful col- 
lection, and neatly kept. Here is a regular tile ot 
newspapers, amounting to 700 volumes, neatly bound. 

You are also shown the >py <m* the N 

( given by King John in 1\)00. It is kept in a 

B, and is in fine order. It was written by the 
priests then. They only were the men; and wisdom 
died with them. The nations ot" men were under their 
and a passport to enter or retire from the world 
Was required at their hands. 

Tkc B ( v . so called, having reference 

to the costume ot' the children supported and educated 

there, was founded in the reign ot" Edward VI. There 

are generally in this establishment from 1000 to 152,000 

- ami girls receiving their education, besides being 



thorburn's journal. 39 

clothed and boarded. The annual expenditure is 
£30,000 sterling. The dress is a blue cloth gown, with 
sleeves reaching to the ancles, yellow flannel under 
clothes, with a small black cloth cap, which just covers 
the crown of the head. An interesting sight is exhi- 
bited in the hall every Sunday evening from March to 
May, inclusive, to which strangers are admitted by 
tickets, easily obtained from any person connected 
with the establishment. All the children sup together 
at 6 o'clock. The ceremony commences by three 
strokes of a hammer, intended to enforce silence ; one 
of the senior boys reads a chapter, after which prayers 
are read, and a hymn sung — all the boys standing and 
pronouncing Amen! together. The company are seat- 
ed at one end of the hall, and the steward, master, 
matron, &c, occupy the other. When the supper is 
concluded, the doors of the wards are opened, and a 
procession formed in the following order : the nurse ; 
a boy, carrying two lighted candles ; several with bread- 
baskets and trays, and the others in pairs, who all bow 
as they pass the company. In this hall, likewise, the 
lord mayor, aldermen, &c, attend on St. Matthew's 
day to hear orations from the senior boys. In the 
chapel of this institution is interred Thomas Burdett, 
the ancestor of Sir Francis. He was put to death in the 
reign of Edward IV., for wishing the horns of a favour- 
ite white stag (which the king had killed) in the body 
of the person who advised him to do it. No wonder 
that Francis became a radical In St. Paul's, Covent 
Garden, lies the remains of Butler, author of "Hudi- 
bras ;" also Dr. Wolcott, so well known under the name 
of Peter Pindar. St. Giles, Cripplegate, Milton the 
poet, and Fox, author of the " Book of Martyrs," are 
buried here. Oliver Cromwell was married in this 



40 

church. In St. Mary's church, Lombard-street, the 
Rev. John Newton is interred. 

Dissenter's burial-ground — John Bunyan, author of 
the " Pilgrim's Progress;" Susannah, mother of John 
and Charles Wesley: Dr. Watts ; Dr. Rees, author of 
the " Cyclopedia," and many other eminent men arc 
interred here. St. Pancras, old church — here is the 
tomb of the brave but unfortunate Paoli. St. Georges, 
Hanover Square — Laurence Sterne, the wit and divine, 
is interred here. St. Margaret's church contains the 
grave of Sir Walter Raleigh. Westminster Abbey, 
poets 1 corner — Ben Jonson, Spencer, Chaucer, Milton, 
Gray, Thomson, Mrs. Rowe, Goldsmith, Hands], Ad- 
dison, Sir Isaac Newton, William Shakspeare, &c. 
Here also Thomas Parr is interred — he died at the age 
of 152 years. I was much gratified in visiting the old 
churches, and walking among the habitations of the 
dead. 



CHAPTER V. 

A visit to the House of Commons and Covent Garden 
Theatre. 

At 5 P. M., the hour of assembling with my friend, 
I took my stand in the lobby of the House of Com- 
mons. In a few minutes Mr. M., member for West- 
minster, arrived. I was introduced as Mr. T., from 
New-York — wishing to see how business was done 
there — and a ticket for the gallery requested. Mr. M. 
said he had just parted with both of his tickets, (each 
member is allowed two tickets per day for their friends 
—strangers pay 2s. 6d. to get in the gallery,) but he 
would get me in notwithstanding. He soon returned 
with a written order from the speaker to admit me on 
the floor of the House. It is just such a looking room, 
gallery and all, as the Scotch Presbyterian Church in 
Cedar-street. In place of the pulpit there stands a 
throne, gilded and grand enough. In front of the throne 
the speaker sits with a large wig on his head, having 
two tails, one hanging from each shoulder and resting 
on the breast. They are as large as the tail of a merino 
sheep, and look exactly like the picture of Lord Eldon 
you have seen on the sign of Gould, Banks & Gould, 
corner of Broad and Wall streets. A table stands before 
him, at which sit two clerks. They, too, have wigs and 
4* 



42 thorburn's journal. 

tails, only the wigs are plainer and the tails shorter 
On the table lies a golden, silver, or gilded mace. This 
is a powerful instrument in the hand ot" the speaker, 
especially when he knocks down the opposition with 
it. On the right and left of the chair are rows of seats, 
stiitled, and covered with leather, rising- above each 
other. On the left sits Cobbett, OVonnell cS. Co. On 
the right, the ministerials. Under the front gallery are 
also raised seats to accommodate strangers admitted 
on the floor. Of course there is a large open space 
between the front seats and the speaker's chair. — 
Whet) I entered, this open space was tilled with 
members standing, and most of them having on their 
hats. They were in small groups, and conversing as 
loud as merchants do on exchange; and other mem- 
bers, on each side of the house, were sitting, some 
covered and some uncovered. Many of them were 
also talking in pairs, and a few, but very few, were 
listening to the member who was speaking. 

This same speaker Mas no other than the great 
Daniel O'Connell, Esq. It matters not what he wa? 
speaking about ; but his manner, matter and voice, very 
mueh resembled the matter, manner and voice of the 
late Thomas A. Emmet. Mr. Holcomb next rose in 
support of O'Connell's project. While he spoke a 
scene ensued which I could never have believed would, 
have been acted in the British House of Commons, 
had I not seen it with my own eyes. British House of 
Commons, indeed!' thought I, as I viewed the uproar : 
common enough you look in all conscience; and a Re- 
formed Parliament too. 

You have often seen in their speeches the word (hear) 
and sometimes (hear, hear.) I used to think this was 
indecorous enough ; but it was hear, hear, hear, hear. 



thorburn's journal. 43 

hear, five times, and by five times twenty-five voices at 
once, and as fast as they could blow them out of their 
mouths — strangers in the galleries joining in confusion. 
Then it was ba, ba, ba, and at last they came to a loud 
hurrah. Here Mr. Holcomb paused. Says he, " Mr. 
Speaker, am I to be insulted in this manner in this 
house with impunity. If any gentleman will step for- 
ward and give his name, I shall know how to take my 
measures." Here he was again drowned by the hears, 
the bahs, the hurrahs, and a universal laugh, in which 
the speaker of the house, the clerks, door-keepers and 
strangers joined. In 1793, there might have been rnoro 
blood shed in a meeting of the sans culottes in Paris, 
but more confusion and more noise I think there 
could not be. 

Says I to my neighbour, is this the far-famed House 
of Commons ? Was it by such men and manners that the 
measures which lost to Britain a continent were sanc- 
tioned? Was it here, or in the next room, that Lord Chat- 
ham, while protesting against the mad measures of Lord 
North, sunk down and died at his post ? Was it thus 
the orders in council were confirmed, which eventuated 
in the late war ? And is it thus they discuss plans on 
which hang the life and interests of millions? It is even 
so ; and this is the parliament, and a reformed parlia- 
ment too, who think they are the men, and that wisdom 
will die with them. Thinks I, had Hall, Hamilton, or 
Fiddler, witnessed such a mob-looking government in 
our congress, they might have lived a twelve-month on 
the paragraph. Cobbett and O'Connell sat side by side 
in front of the opposition ranks. They looked like two 
great mastiffs of democracy, panting to enter the ring of 
political bull baiting. 

I thought of going into the House of Peers, but a lit* 



44 

tie trouble and a small expense was in the way. A 
gentleman proposed to introduce me to the king, as 
there was a levee to be held next day — but, says he, you 
will have to get a court dress ; and, says I, what is a 
court dress ? says he, you will have to get silk stock- 
ings, breeches, a cocked hat and a sword. Says I, were 
I to put all these articles on, and look in the glass, I 
should not know myself. He smiled ; but, says I, what 
will this sword, hat, &c, &c, cost? Why, says he, 
you may get them all for twenty guineas. Twenty 
guineas, says I ; I would not give twenty guineas 
to see all the kings in Christendom. Ah, says He, 
you arc a true Scot. On the whole, I thought the 
speakers in the House of Commons were very com- 
mon-place speakers, not to be compared (in my 
opinion) with Maxwell, Price, Anthon, three eminent 
lawyers, and many others I have heard at the Hall. 

Never having seen a play acted, and wishing to see 
how they held the mirror up to nature, I took my 
seat in a front box. The house was splendid, the com- 
pany splendid, the dresses of the actors splendid, and 
as far as I could judge, the acting was splendid. This 
was at Covent Garden Theatre — the play Richard the 
Third. It was acted to the life, as a connoisseur told 
me. I liked the play, and heard nothing immoral about 
it. But in the farce or afterpiece, when a company of 
young women came out to dance, I was perfectly satis- 
fied that the theatre is no school for morality. I ex- 
pressed my astonishment to a friend beside me ; he 
said that was modesty itself, compared to what he had 
seen on some occasions. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Bank of England — General Post-Office — Custom 
House — Streets of London — Female Postillions, S$c. 

The Bank of England 

Is the most important institution of the kind that 
exists in the world. And the history of hanking fur- 
nishes no example that ctfn at all compare with it for 
the range and multiplicity of its transactions, and for 
the vast influence which it possesses among the moneyed 
institutions of every country. 

This bank was chartered in 1694, one hundred and 
forty years ago. (Query. When will America boast of 
a bank so ancient ?) 

The business hours are from 9 till 5 ; and any person 
may visit most of the apartments. The principal en- 
trance is in Threadneedle-street, not far from the 
American CofTee-House. This immense pile of build- 
ings is more extensive in its range of offices than any 
other public institution in London. I saw one room 
wherein were upwards of 100 clerks, all engaged in one 
distinct department of the business ; there is one room, 
where the exclusive business of the clerks is to detect 
forgeries. The rotunda is a spacious circular room, with 



46 thorburn's journal. 

a lofty dome. Here a large and heterogenous mass of 
persons, of all nations and classes, assemble to buy and 
sell stoek. The building is 410 feet on the west side, 
410 on the north side, 365 on the south, and 846 on the 
east side ; the whole is constructed without timber. 
I saw one clerk receiving, and another paying out 
sovereigns by the pound weight. 

The General Post-Office. 

Its system and arrangements is another of those 

tremendous concerns, with which this world of a city 
abounds. It is situated in St, Martin's-le-Grand. 
The building is 400 feet in length, and eighty in depth. 
The secretary resides in the building, and the upper 
stories contain sleeping-rooms for the foreign clerks, 
who are liable to be called to duty on the arrival of the 
mails. The basement story is rendered tire-proof by 
btick vaultings. They have an ingenious machine for 
conveying coals to the upper stories, and a simple 
means for forcing water to any part of the edifice in 
ease o\' tire. The whole building is lighted by gas, oi' 
which there are nearly 1.000 burners. 

In this city you may walk in a straight line a dis- 
tance of seven miles without getting off the pavements. 
Therefore, to expedite the delivery o( the letters in 
the morning, they have light carriages called accelera- 
tors. In them arc placed the postman ami his letters ; 
each taking a division oi the met i opolis, they drop the let- 
ter carriers in their own particular walk. The average 
number oi' letters that pass through the post-oiliee in 
one week exceeds bait' a million. The inland-olliee 
employs about 200 superintendents, clerks, and sorters : 
besides about 200 persons in delivering the letters; 



tjiorburn's journal. 47 

and the foreign department employs about 20 clerki 
and sorters, betides 34 persons in delivering. The 
two-penny post employs about BO sorters and clerks — 
besides there is one branch office in Lombard-street, 
one in Charing Cross, and one in Vere-street; there 

are besides upwards of 160 receiving bouses in differ- 
ent parts of ihc city. 

Th e Casio m- House 

Is another mammoth concern, hs length 480, and its 
breadth LOO feet It affords accommodation to about 050 
clerks and officers, besides 1000 tide waiters and ser- 
vants. The long-room for entries, &c, is 180 feet 
long, and 60 in width. They have a comfortable ar- 
rangement in this room; — just as the clock struck one. 
I observed a number of small boys come in, with four 
raw oysters and a piece of bread on a plate, and set it 
down on the desks by each clerk. I thought this was 
preferable to running out to an eating house. This 
building stands on the banks of the Thames in the 
lower end of the city, much in the same proportion to 
London, as if it stood on the Coffee-House Slip in New- 
York. The banks, post-office, exchange, &c, &-c, are 
oil down town. 

1 dined with an old gentleman who had been an offi- 
cer in the custom-house for 50 years — he is now retired 
on full pay. Ho says that no competent officer is ever 
discharged except for bad behavior, and whenever they 
have served 50 years in any office, they arc entitled to full 
pay for life. I think this is a politic and just arrangement. 
It stimulates to good behavior; and when a man serves 
the public faithfully for 50 years, he certainly is justly 
entitled to a comfortable support during the few re- 



48 

maining years of his life. But in America we manage 
things otherwise — no matter, though a man may have 
lost an eye, an arm, or a leg, when fighting for his 
country's rights. No matter, though his goods have 
been pillaged, his dwelling burned, and his wife and 
children drove to look for shelter through the. freezing 
snow of a winter's night. No matter, though he has 
served the public with fidelity and honesty ever since his 
appointment in the days of Washington.' No matter, 
though his salary is barely sufficient to keep soul and 
body together, and of course he is unable to lay tip for 
old age. All this matters not: he is removed to make 
room for some lazy, hungry, political favourite, who 
was very useful to the party at the last election, by 
cursing and swearing, telling lies and getting drunk at 
the poles ; (and yet these men are supported by the 
majority of those who are styled friends of morality.) 
The consequence is, that no man of honour or respecta- 
bility will give up the profits of his own profession 
for the sake of serving the public ; and men without 
principle, knowing the uncertain tenor by which they 
hold their office, will make the most of it, (as many of 
them have done,) and so become defaulters. 

Another great evil is the instability of every thing. — 
In less than 35 years I have seen two United States 1 
Banks cut up, mangled and murdered, to answer the 
purposes of a few unprincipled, pennyless, political in- 
triguers. 

But to return to the streets of London. Nothing can 
exceed the good-natured humility of many ladies and 
gentlemen of the British metropolis; forinstead of em- 
ploying their coachmen and grooms to drive them, they 
frequently undertake the office of their servants, and 
mount the coach box, or the dicky, while the servants 



thorburn's journal. 49 

arc lounging by their sides, or lolling within the car- 
riage. The coach-box tete-a-tete between ladies and 
their grooms, have a most engaging effect in the crowded 
streets of London, particularly if Thomas happens 
(which is sometimes the case) to have his arms round 
the waist of his mistress to prevent her falling — into 
worse hands. The drive in Hyde Park, and that noisy, 
crowded, thronged thoroughfare, Bond-street, that pup- 
pet-show stage of fashion, presents many scenes of this 
kind. Here may often be seen a female flogging-driver 
(improperly called a lady) dashing along in her lofty 
curricle, with one lounging groom at her side, and two 
others behind, thereby creating wonder, fear, and pity, 
from a gaping multitude. 

I believe London is the only place in the world where 
men and women of fashion have raised themselves to 
a level with their coachmen and postillions. Had Mrs. 
Trollope, or Parson Fiddler, witnessed such scenes in 
New-York, what a grand theme there would have been 
for a display of their fine moral sensibilities. 



CHAPTER Ml. 

\\ London. 

1\ iht 7'w. " of London [here are n thousand recol- 
lections of events, genetell) painfull but all interesting, 
which seem by most people entirely km-^oiuh. There, 
not culv virtue and heroism, but/emaie inwoc 

\>o boon oiVored up i catacomb to the bwsa 

io&l of many of those roj/al 
liriys mon falsely >o called w ln>. in days gone DJ . 

cursed these beautiful nelda of England (for, thank God, 

neither tin- annals of my n:\ti\e nor of my adopted 

country are itained by deeda so barbarous) with their 
hateful persons. This honour of murdering weak, 
delicate) helpless, beautiful woman, seems exclusively 
to belong to those cbiTelroui spirits, the descendants 
of St George, St Louis, Bonaparte 1 ! Invincible*, and 
those opium*fed beings called Turks. When 1 stood 
on the spot where the bead of Lady Jane Gray and 

others rolled in the basket, these ami the following 

reflections forced themselves' on mj mind« I looked 

back tO the days when that monster in human shape, 

King Richard, cursed the earth l saw, on the ipol 
where l stood, the scaffold, the block, the executioner 
In horrid ittire, end at thus moment the fatal axe was 

in my hand I saw the ring termed, composed of the 



•I IIOItlll!IIN'.i JOI/KNAf,. G1 

Knights of the Tempi*, of the Croee, of Melts, end of 
fern ah in. There they eat on the becki of their hor- 
iee, themeeto \ Accoutred In ell die material end air- 
eomitance of war** ihield end buckler* iword in hand, 
ipeai "i reft, and bow and ojuivei by their sides. And 
for what jh all thii military array! Why it is one 
thoueend of the Champions oj England met to i 
in the murder ofeweak, beautiful, innocent woman. I 
looked up i') the bell, and fancied i heard it toll, f 
turned and beheld the door through which the walked 
to death, inpported \>y two prieeti beering the eroee — 
ble dreen and mourning veil -her face pele ret 

lovely in death. She looked like. B tender lilly of the 
valley, drooping its modest head anion ;< the bledi smoke 
ant! einderf Of Mount Vesuvius. But what must have 

been her thoughti when ihe beheld the Percy, the 

(Jloiter, the York, the Lancaster, and ell thofe mighty 

murderen of the human rece, eeeemhled to shed her 

blood : they, who, hut a dw days hefore, had wore 
Jut odour, fOUght in her n;ime at the: tournament, talked 
abOUt lady love, and bent to her the, knee — now, like 
rtcrvile slaves, at the nod of their little master they 

guard her to the slaughter. Now ftfre* Trollope end 
on Fiddler, these being! said they were English- 
men j hut had there heen aught than craven blood 
in their milk and water veins, they would have sped 
their arrows through the black BOUl of their tyrant. 

Tl .re i!j : patriot, with ;i hrow of indignant virtue, 
and a mind flaming with holy zeal i'xv the Welfare of 
his fellow men, has : miled under tin: axe, end pttt 
tin: seal of blOdd to the testament of his principles — 
There the faithful and Upright n..ni-,tir has found his 
prison and hlf grave, from ihe sceptred and ungrateful 
hnnd too forgivingly saluted when raised to ntiike the 



52 thorburn's journal. 

annihilating blow.* And there, too, the " diadem en- 
circled brow" has one moment stood exalted in the 
pride and entire plenitude of power, and the next sunk 
under the arm of the assassin. But there are re- 
collections of a livelier kind attached to the tower. A 
long race of princes kept court there. Among them 
are Henry V. and Edward III. Within its walls those 
two scourges of France welcomed "shout and revelry," 
and fair dames distributed prizes to the victors at the 
tournament, when the mailed heroes " drank the red 
wine through the helmet barred," and the proud Crusa- 
der — " le casque sur le front, et le croix sur le sein" — - 
" with helmet on his brow, and cross upon his breast," 
reined in his stately courser, and dismounted to bend 
the knee to beauty. Thus the union of grandeur and 
misery, of the palace and the dungeon, of all the ex- 
tremes of human existence, have contributed to make 
the tower a place of durable remembrance. 

Diverging from Tower-street a little to the left, on 
entering upon Tower Hill, is the spot where the scaffold 
formerly stood, near the south-western angle of the iron 
palisadoes enclosing the plantation. These scaffold- 
posts were fixtures in the ground, the planks that 
covered them being only removed after an execution. 
They remained there until the revolution, and consisted 
of four upright pieces of wood placed at right angles, 
having two shorter posts on the western side, which 
latter most probably supported the steps — those steps, 
to ascend which Sir Thomas Moore asked assistance 
of the lieutenant of the tower, saying, " friend, help me 
up, and whenl come down again let me shift for myself," 
— and to the executioner, that " he would get little 

* Read the fate of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, in Hume. 



thorburn's journal. 63 

credit for beheading him, his neck was so short." There 
also fell his friend Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who 
lingered a year in the tower, deprived even of necessary- 
clothing, for refusing to acknowledge that monster of 
crime, Henry, to be God's vicegerent upon earth. 

There died Cromwell, Earl of Essex, without having 
had a trial ; the virtuous Earl of Surry, one of our 
early poets ; the politic Strafford, and the energetic Sir 
Henry Vane, whose last address to the people being 
feared, was drowned by the noise of drums placed round 
the scaffold for that purpose. And there fell the 
patriotic and heroic Sidney, the innocent and venerable 
Countess ol Salisbury, the last of the line of thePlanta- 
genets, who ran round the scaffold, and refused to lay 
her head on the block without a trial, her gray locks 
hanging over her shoulders, till, after many fruitless 
blows aimed at her neck by the executioner, the race 
that had swayed the sceptre of England for three hun- 
dred years, was extinguished by a brutal stroke. (Well, 
Mrs. Trollope, where was now your champions of 
England, your gallant knights, your men of refinement, 
with their breast-plates of steel and ten thousand lances 
at re st — a set of babbling boys, gabbling about lady 
love and protecting innocence? There they stand 
in mock martial array to witness the brutal murder of 
their grandmother. Why, woman, you never heard 
of such soulless meanness among the red savages in 
the western wilds of America.*) 



* These and similar remarks I made to the chief officers, their 
ladies and daughters, wardens, constables, lieutenants, mayors, 
&c. In the room which contains the armory I saw 150,000 stand 
of arms, all ready for actual service in five minutes. This room is 
345 feet long by 60 broad. While walking here with the warden, 

5* 



54 thorburn's journal. 

For the tower again. There poor Anna Boleyn 
smiled at the shortness of her neck for the headsman's 
purpose. There poor Jane Shore was left to die in l 
ditch with hunger and cold, because another of those 
brutal kings commanded his slaves not to give her food 
or shelter. While I stood on Shore ditch, I wondered 
in my mind — ,k could there not be found men enough in 
all England, rather to have torn the flinty heart from 
his carcass." 

Volumes might be filled with the deeds of those devils 
in human shape, but instead of enumerating others, it 
may be best to follow the path over which their head- 
less trunks were conveyed, back to their former place 
of confinement. There is something very imposing in 
the massy buildings of the tower gates and their quad- 
ruple guards, in passing under the low, heavy, gothic 
portals which lead to it, and which have conducted so 
many, asShakspeare has it, to M makes bloody supper in 
the tower." Dungeons and bastiles, inquisition and 
torture, rush upon the mind, and one thinks of the En- 



thc officers, ladies, <fcc, came in in dozens. I asked the warden 
what it meant. Says he, " they have come to see you.'" " Then,*' 
says I, " as this is a place of sights, let us go and see them." I 
was introduced — when, for ten minutes, there was perhaps more 
shaking of hands and tender good will than has taken place there 
since the days of King John and the Magna Chart*. First came 
the hard mailed glove of the veteran of Waterloo. Then the soft 
glove of the ladies, with hands as white and delicate as used to 
be seen in that same tower in the golden days of Queen Bess. I 
then learned, that as soon as I had entered my name on the book 
in the guard-house, (a thing 1 required of all strangers,) the alarm 
was given, that the New-York seedsman and Laurie Todd were 
in the tower. They beat, not to arms however ; but the garrison 
was. mostly turned out. 



tiiorburn's journal. 55 

glish Lord Chancellor, who, flaming with love and zeal 
for the name of miscalled religion, insisted that the 
lieutenants of the tower should tighten the rack yet 
more, on which the tender limbs of the beautiful Anne 
Askew were agonizing, and on the lieutenants' refusal 
to do so, actually doing it himself. This savage was a 
refined English gentleman, Mrs. Trollope. 

The space between the gates and the moat is ex- 
tremely gloomy, and has struck a chill upon the heart 
of many a state-prisoner, as he was conducted across 
its narrow road. It is here that the mind becomes 
impressed with the aspect of the place, to a degree of 
melancholy ; the black dilapidated byeward tower, and 
the drawbridge; the antique-looking yeoman at the 
gate, the bloody tower, the portcullis which points 
down its sharp terminations, threatening the assailant ; 
and the gates of oak, studded with iron, and crumbling 
to decay — are yet perfect enough to show the precau- 
tions by which, in former times, they sought to render 
their fortresses impregnable. On the other side is the 
gate, under which the prisoners were conveyed by wa- 
ter to their dungeons immediately under the river. It 
was on that gate that the heads of persons put to dea.th 
were exhibited on stakes, after pickling to preserve 
them as long as possible from the action of the weather, 
according to the barbarous manners of the times. It 
was under that gate, that Queen Elizabeth entered 
a prisoner; and while entering, exclaimed, "here 
landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed 
on these stairs, and before God I speak it." 

One of the most painfully interesting sights in the 
fortres«, is the room that is called the Beaucamp 
Tower, where many illustrious prisoners were con- 
fined ; and the sad inscriptions it contained on the 



66 THORBURN'S JOURNAL. 

walls, " Jane," supposed to be Jane Grey, was visi- 
ble, but destroyed in altering a window; numerous 
scrawls still remain legible. 

In the chapel are interred many of the sufferers from 
regal vengeance ; among them Anna Boleyn, whose 
beautiful eyes, as she turned them on the executioner, 
so affected him, he was obliged to have recourse to 
stratagem to strike the fatal blow. Her body was 
flung into an old arrow case and interred, while her 
execrable husband awaited impatiently at Richmond, 
a short distance from London, the sound of the guns 
that told him of her execution. The appeal of Anna 
Boleyn to heaven on her being sentenced to die, is 
one of the most beautiful on record. " O, Father ! 
O, Creator ! thou who art the way, the truth,, and the 
life : thou knowest that I have not deserved this 
death." 

While I held in one hand the axe which severed the 
head from her body ; and in the other the following 
pathetic letter, which she wrote in the room in which I 
stood, to try to move to pity the heart of that brute in 
human shape, Henry the Eighth, her husband, I won- 
dered where then had slept the thunder-bolts of heaven, 
that the monster was not blasted from the earth. I 
said to the warden, where now was your Knight Tem- 
plars, heroes sworn to protect the innocent ? Cowardly 
slaves ! the fear of a single tyrant made them stand and 
assent to the murder of his innocent queen. Mrs. Trol- 
lope, this king and these mighty champions were some 
of your refined English gentlemen. 



57 



The Letter. 

Sir — Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment 
are tilings so strange to me, as what to write or what 
to excuse^ I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you 
send to me (willing me to confess a truth, and to ob- 
tain your favour) by such a one, whom you know to 
be my professed enemy — I no sooner received this 
message by him, than I rightly conceived your mean- 
ing. And if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may 
procure my safety, I shall, with all willingness and duty, 
perform your command. 

But let not your grace ever imagine, that your poor 
wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where 
not so much as a thought thereof ever presided. And 
to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in 
all duty and in all true affection, than you have ever 
found in Anna Boleyn ; with which name and place I 
could willingly have contented myself, if God and your 
grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I 
at any time so far forget myself in my exalted station, 
or received queenship, but that I always looked for 
such an alteration as I now find ; for the ground of my 
preferment being on no surer foundation than your 
grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and 
sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. 

You have chosen me from a low estate to be your 
queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire ; if 
then you have found me worthy of such honour — it is 
well. But let not alight fancy or bad counsel of mine ene- 
mies withdraw your princely favour from me ; neither 
let that stain, that unworthy stain of a disloyal heart 
towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on 



58 

your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your 
daughter. 

Try me, good king ; but let me have a lawful trial, 
and let not mine sworn enemies sit as my accusers and 
judges. Yea, let me receive an open trial, (for my 
truth shall fear no open shame,) then shall you see 
mine innocence cleared, your conscience satisfied, the 
ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my 
guilt openly declared. So, whatever God or your grace 
may determine of me, your grace may be freed from 
open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, 
your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not 
only to execute worthy punishment on me as an un- 
faithful wife, but to follow your affection already set- 
tled on that party for whose sake I am now as I am; 
and whose name I could some good while since have 
pointed unto your grace, not being ignorant of my 
suspicion therein. 

But if you have already determined of me, and that 
not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring 
you the enjoyment of your desired happiness, then I 
desire of God that he will pardon your great sin there- 
in; and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof. 
That he will not call you to a strict account for your 
unprincely and cruel usage of me at his general judg- 
ment seat, where both you and myself must shortly 
appear ; and in whose judgment I doubt not, whatsoever 
the world may think of me, mine innocence shall be 
openly known and sufficiently cleared. 

My last and only request shall be, that myself may 
only bear the burthen of your grace's displeasure, and 
that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor 
gentlemen, who, as I understand, are likewise in strait 
imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found fa- 



thorburn's journal. 69 

vour in your sight ; if ever the name of Anna Boleyn 
hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this 
request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any 
further ; with earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your 
grace in good keeping, and to direct you in ail your 
actions. 

From my doleful prison in the tower, this 6th day 
of May, 1536. Your Most Loyal and 

ever Faithful Wife, 
Anna Boleyn. 

This letter was written with a view, if possible, to 
soften the obdurate heart of her husband. It had not 
the desired effect, neither was her last request granted. 
Execrable villain ! 

This English bastile was begun to be erected in the 
year 1076. The French bastiles were built about the same 
time. We may be thankful that the soil of America 
has not yet been cursed with these engines of tyranny, 
nor with the wretches that used them. Were proof 
wanting to establish the doctrine of a general judgment, 
the fact that the Henrys in England, and Louises in 
France, once cursed the earth, would be proof sufficient! 
On the whole, melancholy was my predominant feeling 
while in the tower, when reflecting that I was treading 
over the lifeless trunks of (perhaps) thousands, whose 
heads were exposed on tower gates and temple bar, 
to be wasted by the winds and picked by the ravens, to 
glut the bloody appetite of these savage kings. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Sir A. C , — Sign Boards, df-c. 

In London you may reside for years and know but 
little of the city ; the only true view of London is to be 
seen in the colosseum, round whose walls is hung a 
panoramic painting, which occupies 40,000 square feet 
of canvass, or nearly one acre. Here you may see 
London, with twenty miles of country around, as true as 
nature itself. But the city is so constantly shaded by 
smoke, particularly in winter, that you can neither see 
sun, moon, nor stars, for many days. The people are 
not quite so social here as in Edinburgh. There is a 
certain consequential carriage about an Englishman 
wherever he goes, that he seems to think there's nanc 
like 'em. The following is an instance : 

A Muckle Man, and a We'e Head. 

Sir A. C left his card at the house of my friend 

where I lodged, with a pressing request that I would 
call at 12 M. next day at his house, as he wished 
me to transact a piece of particular business for him on 
my arrival in America. Within a minute of the time I 



thorburn's journal. 61 

was at the door ; it was a rainy day, and I had walked 
a mile. I rang the bell — the door was opened by a ser- 
vant in livery. " Is Sir Andrew within ?" " He is." 
" Can I see him ?" He looked at my hat and surtout. 
I ever make it a point to put on my worst coat in rainy 
weather. ■ This coat I had worn on ship-board, and 
from Liverpool to London, and from London to Edin- 
burgh, &c, travelling night and day nearly four months : 
but you will observe, I always travel inside, — a man 
who is careful of his coat will never be careless of his 
person. By-the-by, most travellers ride outside in Bri- 
tain. A stage will carry eighteen passengers, but there 
is room only for four inside. I think that in taking 
care of the person consists one of the most essential 
points of economy. To establish this proposition, (as 
Maxwell and Price would say at the Hall,) I will relate 
an anecdote, or circumstance, or what you please. 
N. B. When travelling in Britain, always secure your 
ticket the day previous to starting, if you wish to occupy 
an inside seat. But to return — On the 10th of December, 
I think, at 3 o'clock P. M., I stepped into the coach for 
Liverpool. There were two ladies and myself; the 
fourth seat was not engaged. We drove from Cockspur- 
street, and stopped at St. Paul's to take on some pack- 
ages of merchandise. While thus engaged, a gentle- 
man pops in his head — " Any room within ?" " By my 
side, sir, there is enough, as you are not very large, no 
more than myself." (It was now dark, and just com- 
menced raining.) In a moment he was at my side* 
highly pleased with his seat, and having a partner who 
would not squeeze him to death, as he said had like to 
have happened to him the night previous, riding all 
night with a two legged animal weighing above two 
hundred and fifty pounds, he presumed. When this 

6 



|g TMORBVR N I JOURNAL. 

same gentleman was lettingdown the steps, the younger 

of the ladies, who sat on the back Beat, exclaims " Oh, 

my husband l" " Where is lie, ma'am '" M On the top 
Of the coachi" " And why was lie not by your side \ n 
"1 told him so, and thai ii would ram. lie said he would 

vide to the first change of horses, (eight miles) and as it 
was not likely the seats would be filled, he would then 
come in at under price.' 1 M I presume your husband 
is no stranger to the road \ n " He 1ms travelled much," 

Bays she, "Then," says I, he OUght to have known 
better; but, says 1, ma'am, though we are commanded 

to love our neighbor as ourselves, [not better ;) yet were 

you on the top on such a night, I would give you my 
seat, and put up at the first stage till morning; and I 
advise you to ask your husband to stop till this time to- 
morrow , when the same stage will stop and take you 
on without any additional expense." She made the pro- 
position ; he would not comply. As the rain descended, 
the wind blew, and the hail beat against the side and 
glass oi' the carriage, she still exclaimed, M Oh, my hus- 
band !" The elderly lady said little ; my friend hy my 
side speaks out to mend the matter. Says he, 1 started 
from the Crown and Anchor, about the same hour, a 
twelvemonth ago. It was a line evening. I thought 
I might Bave a half guinea by taking the top. — 
About an hour after starting it commenced raining, 
and never stopped till I got into Liverpool. I took sick 
next morning — was not out of doors for ten weeks. I 
feel the effects oi it now, besides paying the doctor forty 
guineas. Again she exclaims, " Oh, my husband !" We 
rode in profound darkness from -1 P. M. to 8 A. ML, 
when we stopped for breakfast. Every time we stop- 
ped through the night, which was almost every hour to 
change horses, she still called him to the window — "Are 



thorrurn's journal. 03 

you cold? Arc you wet? Go into the hotel and get 
some wann drink," &e. Indeed, there was bo much ho~ 
jtrij mixed with thete coach-window lectures, that I be- 
gan to think it must be the second week of the new 
moon. At breakfast, the husband was so hoarse that 
he could speak only with difficulty. At 9 A. M., the 
sun shone out bright; we could now see one another, 
and the world around us. Before two hours, we were 
well acquainted. Theyoung lady had been to London, a 
journey of fifty miles, just to gel married in St. Mary's 
Church, because she had been christened there, and was 

now gone balk again. The other lady seemed to be 
ah out thirty-five, f presumed she must hare been chris- 
tened, but not married, as her card denoted Miss Jj , 

of B . The gentleman on my right was a Mr. It., 

a merchant from Liverpool, f afterwards paid him a 

visit. Miss 1$ seemed a lady in t:vary sense of 

the word — spoke little, but much to the purpose — had 
plenty of money, which she paid away in profusion 
to the book-pedlars, ginger-bread and pie-pedlars, beg- 
gars and children, that beset our carriage wherever we 
stopped. 

Mr. It. and I had just finished a three miles conver- 
sation. While we spoke she seemed all attention. We 
stopped for a minute. Pray, sir, says she, (looking in 
my face,) did you ever read any of John Gait's novels ? 
I hare, madam, says I. Did you ever, says she, read 
Laurie Todd 1 Yes, madam; and have you, madam, 
says I read that book? I have, says she; and if I mis- 
take not, 1 see before me the hero of the tale. As I said 
nothing to the contrary, she held out her hand. Most 
willingly, says she, would I have travelled a hundred 
miles from ray road for the pleasure of meeting you. 
We then exchanged cards and compliments in abun- 



04 thorburn's journal. 

(lance. In four hours we stopped at the Saracen's Head, 
in Liverpool, where wc parted to meet no more in this 
world. This, too, is one of the miseries of travelling. 
We frequently make friends in the stage, steamboat, or 
by the way, just enough to feel the pain of parting. But 
I have nearly forgotten Sir Andrew, with whose story 
I set out. The man glanced again at my worst coat. 
" Shall I tell him your business ?" Tell him my busi- 
ness is with him. The parlor door stood open before me — 
no person there — a large coal fire blazing. I heard no stir 
nor symptom of return from down stairs. I pulled off 
my surtout and hat, hung them on a chair in the passage, 
wiped well my booted feet on a large rug, stepped in 
the parlor, lifted a book from the table, and sat down by 
the lire. The servant enters with abroad stare, on see- 
ing me calmly perusing a book by the fire. Sir Andrew 
will be here in a few minutes, says he. No hurry, says I. 
In all this I thought not at the time, nor do I think now, 
that I was violating any of the standard principles of 
common decency, sense or politeness. I knew Sir An- 
drew was the party to be obliged. I had walked a mile 
through the rain, on pavements trod by millions, till the 
mud gets as tough as bird-lime, so that when you take 
one step forward, you frequently slide two back. Sol did 
not feel quite like a pauper to be coolly treated by one 
of his menials. 

In about ten minutes more, a door opened in the far 
end of the parlor, and in stalks a tall, emaciated, lank- 
looking figure. He appeared like a very tenant of mor- 
tality, just prematurely awoke from a midnight and ear 
ly morning debauch. Presuming it was he, I arose, lays 
the book on the table, and walks towards him. Says I, 

I presume this is Mr. C ; Sir Andrew C , 

if you please. Says I, sir, I stand corrected; I know as 



tmorburn's journal. 65 

well as any man how to respect worth and greatness, 
where I find them combined ; but I have sojourned forty 
years in a country where titles are not rife, and though 
I mean no disrespect, yet I find it very unhandy to make 
my tongue twist to your sir concerns here. Then, says 

he, I am speaking with Mr. T , I suppose ; my name 

is T , says I. He began to apologize for detaining 

me so long and for his abrupt salutation. Says he, you 
ought to have sent in your name. I know it, sir; but I 
like to amuse myself now and then with your foibles. 
They are only foibles, says he ; but, says I, I wonder a 
man of your talent and acquirements would snap so 
quick at a small slip of your title from a stranger. Says 
he, you caught me off guard this morning; my head is 
muddy. We shook hands, went to business, and part- 
ed the best of friends. He presented me with two of 
his last publications. Last week I executed the com- 
mission he put in my hand, and I think it will be 
much to his satisfaction. This agreeable, though rather 

vain gentleman, is no less a personage than S to 

his majesty. 

N. B. In a part above, I speak of ladies riding outside 
of the stage. It is a very common occurrence. 

In London, one day in November, it was so very dark 
that I got shaved by gas light at 11 A. M. I was much 
amused in reading the inscriptions on the sign boards; 
one was coat maker, hat maker, boot or spur maker for 
his majesty. Another, frock maker, cape maker, corset 
or glove maker for her majesty. Thousands are licensed 
to sell tea, sugar and coffee, provisions, snuff and to- 
bacco, porter and pies; and I saw on the sign board of 
one man, licensed to sell hay and straw. On the front 
of a three story building in large letters, reaching from 
top to bottom, I observed the following : — 
6* 



66 thorbukn's journal. 

Sight restored, 
and Head-ache cured, 

by Grindstone's 

celebrated 

Eye Smiir, — sold here. 

I thought there was something sounded so hard and 
gritty about curing eyes by a grindstone, that I smiled 
I \ myself. On some of the church doors is a board, 
in large Letters ; — Attendance given here every day at '3 
. ',, /</ church women and christen children. On 
others — for funerals and marriages^ inquire of- the 
b< Eton, No. 16 Threadneedle-street, or wherever it may 
These sign-boards made the church look so much 
Like a house of merchandise — at least so it appeared to 
me. 

There is Amen-street, crossed by Paternoster Row, 
which makes corner of Paternoster and Amen. 

In London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Glasgow, and 
elsewhere, I had the pleasure of converting with some, 
and not a few either, of the best men of the age — great 
fighters, great racers, great duelists, and great play- 
actors Small as 1 am, I Look down on them. But great 
preachers, great physicians, great surgeons, and great 
* >a< bars of any science, 1 think arc the true friends of 
h </ n . 

But, In my opinion, the most extraordinary man in 

our age is .1. C. Loudon, F. L. s. n. s., &c., of London. 
His hands are Lame, so thai he is unable \o carve hi* 
food or wield a pen ; yet he lias sent forth, and continues 

to send forth to the world, more books than any one who 
lives, or has lived, perhaps since the days of Shakspeare 

His Encyclopedias of gardening, of plants, and of agri- 
culture alone, one would think, when he looks on 
them, are more than sufficient for the labours of the 



07 

i it life, lie also publishes, periodically, the Gar- 
doner's Magazine, and another entitled Cottage Archi- 
tecture, CtC But when God withheld from him the 

i hii fingers, he more than restored them in the 
person of hie wife he indites and she writes. (I thought 
of Milton and his daughter*) She is >> woman <>i strong 
mind, as well ai h ready pen. They have only one 
child, (s girl,) so this excellent woman Is able to devote 
in i whole time to her husband, lie Is a Scotchman, t 
mother witi and a clear head* 



CHAPTER X. 

Liverpool — its Whcrves, Trade and Shipping — new 
Cemetery — Huskisson' sDeath — Monument — Mourn- 
ing Widew — Psalm-singing Beggars — Prince 
Rupert's Cottage, SfC. 

u It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house 
of feasting; for that is the end of all men — and the living will 
lay it to his heart." — Eccls. 

Liverpool is not quite as large as New-York; but it is 
probable there is more capital and business there. Nature 
has done but little for them; but, to a large extent, they 
have remedied this defect by art. At low water the 
river Mersey makes a very poor appearance; but their 
substantial stone docks, spacious ware-houses, and the 
wharves shut up at night with walls and gates, guarded 
by the police, and no fire allowed on board the ship- 
ping, form altogether such an appearance of comfort 
and security to the merchant's and their property, as 
perhaps the like is nowhere else to be found. 

The new cemetery at Liverpool is the site of an old 
stone quarry. You descend from the top of the rock 
by a winding path to the level bottom, a distance of 
nearly one hundred feet. I should think, from its ap- 
pearance, that the place of burial occupies nearly one 



thorburn's journal. 69 

mile square. As you look down on the humble graves 
and splendid monuments below, it looks most solemnly- 
imposing, and awfully grand, as if presenting to the 
mind a view of the valley of the shaddow of death. I 
saw six sextons at work in the bowels of the earth. — 
They stood up to the neck, and were digging yet deep- 
er the houses appointed for all the living. With the 
dark, damp wall of rocks all around, the black iron 
doors of the graves, and the caves cut out of the rocks, 
make it look like the very land of forgetfulness itself. 

Here is deposited the remains of the great Mr. Hus- 
kisson. They are just about erecting a splendid monument 
to his memory, this day, December 18, 1833. The 
workmen have laid bare the iron chest which contains 
his bones, preparatory to laying the foundation. The 
sight of his premature grave was fraught with solemn 
reflections and admonitions of instruction. At the time 
of his sudden death, he was perhaps the most popular 
man in England. He had been active in promoting 
the erection of the Manchester Rail-road. On the day 
of its completion, and amid the shouts of the assembled 
thousands, he was summoned, as in a moment, from 
time to eternity. 

The Duke of Wellington was present. The duke 
and he had a difference some time previous, and the 
duke had him removed from the councils of the nation. 
They had not spoke for some time. Now there he 
stood in the proud consciousness of a public benefactor, 
Watching the eyes of Wellington as they scanned ihe 
vast assembly, and saying as it were in his heart, these 
are my strength — you now see where my hope lies. — 
At this moment the duke ard he in appearance were 
made friends. They had just shaken hands ; the people 
were shouting long live Huskisson, the friend of 



70 

man. The duke and he were in earnest conversation, 
and there was but a step between him and death — for 
there stood Death, paying no respect to the noise of the 
people, or pride of the parties, his head bent, earnestly 
engaged in fitting the arrow to the bow-string. He 
slowly stands erect, takes aim for a moment — it touches 
the vitals, and a great man has fallen in Israel that day. 

It appears by some accident that can hardly be ac- 
counted for, that one of those cars of his glory passed 
over his person, and before the morning's sun, all that 
remained of this great, (and from all I can leain,) good 
man, was but a heap of dust. While I stood with my 
hand on the cold. iron coffin which held that head, that 
only a day before contained projects and plans, which 
the life of Methuselah was too short to see executed, I 
thought how small and vain is man, and yet Thou art 
mindful of him. 

There, too, I saw the new made widow. She led 
in each hand a tender pledge of love. She stopped by 
the grave of her husband. As I approached she was 
cropping the yellow leaves from two handsome monthly 
rose-bushes, which stood one at the head and the other 
at the foot of his grave. At the sound of my foot she gave 
a start, and turned her lovely eyes still floating in tears. 
Being afraid to intrude on her sacred sorrow, I hastily 
followed an opposite path, and took my stand where 
I could see without being seen. She continued dressing 
the stock and the wall-flower which grew on its sides, 
while the burning tears dropped fast and thick on the 
cold sod which covered that breast to which but lately 
she was fondly pressed. She spoke to her children — 
no doubt telling them of their father, of whom, from 
their age, they could have known but little. With slow 
and steady step she left the grave, her children going 



JOURNAL. 71 

before. Her countenance, contrasted with the mourning 
weeds, looked as white as the muslin cloth which she 
oft applied to her moistened cheeks. I followed them 
with my eyes until they crossed the garden* gate. 
Then I prayed in my heart that the Father of the father- 
less, and the Judge of the widow, would send them help 
from his Holy Temple. 

Many of those chambers of death are dug out from 
the straight wall of the solid rock. They are shut up 
with an iron door, and generally there is a white marble 
slab with black letters surmounting the door, to denote 
to whom it belongs. On one of these modest looking 
stones was the following inscription : To the memory 

of John , aged 22 years, who died at sea, March, 

1830; and Sarah , aged 18 years, 4 months and 

25 days, who died September, 1830 — the only children 
of their mother, and she is a widow. The affecting tale 
detained me at the mouth of the cave. A respectable 
gentleman, advanced in years, came slowly pacingalong. 
He looked like one who lived among the tombs, and I 
could read in his face that he was one who would not 
return an uncivil answer to a question civilly asked. — 
Says I, " sir, if you can, will you please to tell me aught 
about this melancholy tale." Says he, " Sir, the widow 
is my neighbour. I knew the manly boy and lovely 
girl since they were children. One of those beings in 
the shape of a man, who dangle about houses where there 



* Among the Jews, the place of burial wa3 termed a garden, 
and the sexton a gardener. See John xx. and xv. And the yards 
in many parts of Britain look like a garden, as most of the graves 
are planted with flowers. I saw among- them, in the month of 
January, the lauristinus, the rose, the stock, and the wall-flower, 
in full bloom. 



72 thorburn's journal. 

are young women, and when asked (perhaps after some 
years of dancing attendance) what is their intentions, 
will very coolly reply, why they meant nothing but 
merely to spend time. Well, it was one of those de- 
spisable blanks in creation who frequented the widow's 
house till he gained the affections of the daughter, when 
he suddenly left her, and shortly after was married to 
another. From that day she drooped, and ere six 
moons had waned, her corpse was consigned to this 
narrow house. The widow is supported by a small an- 
nuity left by her husband. Her spirit is kept up by 
the consolations of her Bible, and the hope of joining 
her friends in another and a better world." These 
meditations among the tombs took place in a gray, 
calm, sober-looking afternoon, when the days were 
at the shortest; and at this season in England, 
the sky looks gloomy indeed. I walked out of that 
place of sculls, wishing in my heart that all the fortune 
hunters, office hunters, pleasure hunters, and fox hun- 
ters, would turn aside for an hour and see this great 
sight. Well might it cool the ardour of an office hun- 
ter, for here lays Huskisson, cut down in all his 
flower and prime. Our men of morality too might 
heie learn a lesson. They will talk all the year about 
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, and 
in election week encourage every sort of wickedness 
with greediness. . These men, to be sure, will not get 
drunk — may be they will not swear ; but they will tell a 
few lies. Many of these temperance society men think 
there is no harm in telling lies in election week ; and 
though they do not get drunk themselves, yet they give 
their money to the tavern keeper, with orders to make 
as many drunk as they can, and being that it is election 
week, they think there is no harm in it. In short these 



thorburn's journal. 73 

moralist's care not ; if they only vote their ticket, they 
may get drunk and go to hell for all they care. This, 
by-the-by, is another instance of the beautiful simplicity 
of our republican government. But to return to Li- 
verpool. As I write, there is now passing my window, 
in a very, public street, a poor man and woman ; the 
man holds in his arms a child apparently about four 
months old — two other children are walking by their 
side. They are all four singing, to very good time, 
some sort of a hymn, to the tune of old hundred. I 
thought this was refinement in beggary. 

Everton, in my opinion, is the prettiest little town 
in England ; it stands on a hill adjoining to, and com- 
pletely overlooks Liverpool. Here you have a view 
of the country all around, as far as the eye can reach- 
The beacon on the summit, was built in the year 1220, 
by Runulph Blunderville, then Earl of Chester, 

Prince Rupert's Cottage, so called, from having been 
the head quarters of that prince in the year 1644, while 
he was laying siege to Liverpool. It is a long, low, 
rectangular shaped edifice, about five yards in width, 
and twenty yards in length ; the whole exterior is com- 
posed of rude unchiseled stone, cemented together with 
lime-mortar. The whole is washed over with white lime ; 
the roof is of thatch ; the rafters which support the 
roof are of oak, bare and black with age ; clay has been 
daubed over the inner walls instead of plaster ; and, 
although the present occupiers are cleanly people, it 
makes a very sorrowful appearance. The floors are of 
clay, partially tiled ; it is built on a solid rock, the steps 
are cut in the rock to get in at the door. It is now oc- 
cupied by a family of decent intelligent English cot- 
tagers ; they conducted me through their ancient but 
humble dwelling with much good nature. 

7 



74 raomivmit'i loommi 

Here thon I s.it in the dwelling Of .t ovimv and | 

soldier of fame ; the roof of itrew, and the round 
I ..i from the (rot direetl} over mv bead* 

i ied 1 s.wv the mailed warriors on rough benehea 
surround the whole wall of the Interior, the points of 
their apeari on the hard) «.! i> - elaj floor, their bond on 

the hilt, and their chins resting on their hamls, liMen- 

iag, in sullen eUenee» to the plans of death ami devests 
turn, mnv proposed bv their ohh 
Perhaps this cottage at thit da] waa n good and 

as comfortable a dwelling tor miles .ivouml 

When WC think how many comforts, acconmunlauons 

and pleasures we enjo] in our dwellings, in travelling 

: . by land, ami almost [q oncjy thing which 

our fathers know nothing about 50 yean ago, we 
be thankful thai our \wc* lia\o Mien to us in 
pleasant times 



CHAPTER XL 

Enter Scotland — Old Ca ttlee ttnd Mm asteriei — Re$i» 
denee and Grave of Sir Walter Seott — Meeting with 

my Father t tyc. 

Dec I, 1833#— Crotaed the border, and ent< 
Scotland. An Intelligent gentleman, one of our pas- 

- is, as we pasted along, pointed out many of the 
catties, palacet, roonatteriet and battle grounds, so well 

ribed by Scott, in the Tales of My Landlord, and 
other works. Visited Ahbottford and Drybnrgh Abbey ; 
the former the residence, the latter the grate of Sir Wal- 
ter Scott. So much hat been written of Jate on this 
Bubjeet, that nothing new can be added. 

I had written my friends in Dalkeith, nothing extra 

pre renting, I would be with them on the 12th. The 

•tage pattet within half a mile of my father's door; 

the mail-ttage paetet --it 7, the other at 9 1\ M. Ex- 
pecting me in the mail, my brother and sister-in-law 
woe waiting my arrival. Not finding me with the mail, 
they gare DM up for that night. The fact is, a teal in 
the mail co*-:ts two dollars more than our; in the stage; 
80 I thought it was too much for the pleasure of arri- 
ving two Injurs sooner. 

1 was set down at 9 o'clock — procured a person to 
carry my trunk — arrived at the gate where rny father 



76 v THORBURN r S JOURNAL. 

has lived for half a century — directed the man to call 
my brother, but not to mention my name, as I wished 
to try whether my father would remember my voice, 
not knowing me to be in the room. (He is blind with 
age.) The family consists of my father, brother and 
wife, a young man and servant girl, My brother came 
out.' I told him to caution the family not to mention my 
name. I followed in a minute. My father sat before the 
fire, his arm resting on a table, and his cheek on the 
hand. "Is old Mr. Thorburn in the room ?" I inquired. 
" I am here," says he, " what's your wish ?" " When 
did you hear from your sons in America ?" says 1 
44 We had a letter fnte Grant the other day; he is some 
way aboot Lunnun or Liverpool, he ay rites his com in 
doun, but his unco long about it,* 1 I found he did not 
recognise my voice. I continued, " Don't you find a 
great loss in the want of your Bight; you used to read 
and walk so much V 44 To be sure it is a loss," says 
he ; 4 ' but how can an auld man ninety-ant expect to 
hac a' his faculties. I my be very glad there is ony o 1 
them left. I can hear my freends speak to me ; I can 
eat my bit meat ; # my health is glide, and I sleep weel a! 
night; so I ought to be very thankful." I made some 
other inquiry, when he says, (beginning to recollect my 
voice,) 44 but, am thinking yere Grant kimtell, n The 
rest maybe described, but cannot be felt. 

It was now within a few months of forty years since 
we first parted on. that same spot. At ihat time our 
calculations were, that we would never meet until we 
met in eternity. But here we were, and in circumstan- 
ces of peace, comfort, and plenty, A pleasure this. 



♦ Meat, in Scotland, means all sorts of food. 



thorburn's journal. 77 

which few who have left their father's house ever en- 
joyed in such perfection. Not many days after I sat 
down to dinner with nearly twenty of my old school 
fellows. We had then the days o' lang syne up to 
nature. 

The seat of the Buccleugh family stands in a beauti- 
ful park at the foot of the town (Dalkeith) where my 
father resides. I received an invitation from, and spent 
a pleasant half hour with the- duke and his duchess. He 
is a gentleman of the most amiable deportment and 
manners. It may be said of them, in truth, that they 
have been formed after the same model. The family 
ever have been as nursing fathers and mothers to the 
widow, the orphan, the sick, and the poor of the parish'; 
and the present family follow in the steps of their pre- 
decessors. They are both young, neither of them being 
over twenty-live years of age. When introduced, the 
duke was engaged in conversation with two gentlemen. 
He joined me at once, led me into an elegant parlour, 
where we were joined by the duchess in a few minutea. 
She on the one side, I on the other, and he in front of 
the fire. We conversed of times and things. I addressed 
them simply, sir and madam, observing — I hoped they 
would excuse my plainness of speech ; that I knew how 
to respect worth, and especially when I found it in su- 
periors, (as without flattery was now the case ;) but 
being unused to courtly style, to attempt it now would 
be making bad worse. The duke observed — he hoped 
while in their company I would feel as if at home, that 
he knew what value to put in empty sounds. The 
nurses brought in their two pretty children. As de- 
scendants of a worthy family, I kissed them with my 
lips, while I blessed them in my heart. 

7* 



78 thordurn's journal. 

The duchess thanked me for the polite dedication 
(as she termed it) of my history toiler.* I said I had 
my doubts of its politeness, but was sure of its sincerity. 
But, madam, said I, you can say what perhaps no lady 
in Britain can say about a dedication, it was addressed 
to you from the cabin of the ship George Washington,] 

* The London edition of ray Forty Years Residence is dedica- 
ted to the duchess, as follows : — 

To Her Grace 

the Duchess of Buccleugh 

would I dedicate this Book, were I master of the 

courtly style. 

When I think of her who was duchess 

fifty years ago, as I saw her feeding the robin, 

the sparrow, and the raven, 

from hor basket of crumbs, on the freezing 

snows of a winter's morning. — 

As I saw hor gathering up the loaves and fishes, 

and giving them to the poor, that 

nothing might bo lost. — 

As I saw her giving her gold to the widow, 

and her silver to the orphan of the Parish. — 

I say, when I think on these things, 

tho name, 

Puchcss of Buccleugh, 

sounds like music in mine car. 

That you, madam, niny long enjoy in this world 

tho peace which passclh all understanding, 

and a mansion in the skies, 

when tho castles and palaces of earth 

will shiver in tho blase, 
is tho prayer of your sincere welt-wishcr, 

GRANT THORBURN. 
t In Decomber, 1333, and February, 1834, I mot more than 
one person in London, who seriously believed that General 
Washington was born in England. Oh how Basile Hall and Mrs. 
Trollopo would have stared at each other, had they met such pro 
found ignorance in Washington City or New-York. 



tiiokdijkn's JOURNAL. 79 

in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. She smiled at 
the remark, and observed, it \va« very likely to be the 
first instance of the kind. 

When we pa 'ted Ihe ducheii said, if there was any 
thing in the garden or green-houses, in the shape of 
plants or roots, that I would wisli to take with me to 
America, to tell the head gardener that it washer wish 
the) should be properly put up for me. \ mention 

this, and I eould mention other instances of the same 
polite attention [received from persons high in Society, 

not from ostentation, but that those who ead these 

lines may sec, that what arc termed nohilih/ in Fairopc, 
arc not all of them the brainless fools that multitude! in 
this country take them to be ; and to hear my testimony 
of respect to that worthy family, who have been the 
chief support of my native town for many generations.* 



* About fifty yoarn ago, a poor woman living in the parish of 
Dalkeith, having 1 a favour to ask from the duchess, put on her 
host Tartan plaid, ami gOSI forth. On tho way, she slops into 
thohousoofa noighbor gOllip, told wlioro hIio wun going, and 
asked what sbo should nay wlion hIio spoko to tho ducliCHH. Oh, 
says tho gossip, you must say your grace. 1 Well, tho old lady 
arrivod at tho palace, was shown into tho room where the duch- 
oss gavo audienco to these people. M Well, good woman, " sayu 
the dttOheil, M what is your wish ?" u For what we are going to 
roceivo, may tho Fjord make us thankful, Amen." The daohsSI 
smiled, and repeated her question. " For what w<i nn; going to 
rocoiv," &c, again says the old woman. The duoheil was una- 
blo to sit with laughter. She called a female servant, and told 
hor to sen what tho old lady wanted. The request was readily 
granted, and probably doubled for tho humour of tho joko. 

t " Your graco," is tho fashionable modo of speaking whor\ 
you addross the wife of a duko. But tho old lady thought fhs 
was to use tho words she waa wont to uso before eating her food. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Edinburgh — Its Inhabitants — Manners — Buildings — • 
Countess of Stair — and Mrs. Macfarlane, dfc. 

There is a sort of a plain, steady, sedate, straight 
forward, unsophisticated manner about the folks of this 
gude toon, and indeed all over Scotland, that is not to 
be met with in any other country. The views from the 
castle, and other hills near the city, are beautiful in the 
extreme. In short, what the tour of Europe was ne- 
cessary to see elsewhere, you may find congregated 
in Edinburgh. Here are alike the beauties of Prague, 
and of Saltsburgh ; here are the romantic sites of 
Orvietto and Tivoli ; and here is all the magnificence 
of Naples and Genoa. 

Many of the houses are 10, and some of them 12 
stories high. Fifty years ago, the highest and lowest 
tenements were occupied by artificers ; while the 
gentry and better sort of people, dwelt in the 5th 
and 6th stories, being exactly different in this respect 
from the custom in London. There the rich live below, 
and the baser sort above. Some forty years ago, a 
gentleman from Edinburgh, having business in London 



THORBURN'fl JOURNAL. 81 

to detain him some months, he engaged the uppermost 
story of a lodging house. He was very much surprised 
to find what he thought the genteelest place of the 
whole to be the cheapest. His friends who came to 
see him, in vain acquainted him with the mistake he 
had been ■ guilty of. " He kend very weel" he said, 
" what gentility was, and < r ter having lived all his life 
in a sixth story, he was not come to London to live upon 
the ground" 

The castle, the houses, the closes and lanes in the 
ancient parts of the old tov/n, are connected with every 
thing romantic and interesting in Scottish history. In 
these narrow lanes and closes (so made to repel inva- 
ders,) dwelt most of the nobles and gentry of Scotland, 
whose names are conspicuous in the history of the last 
century. But now they are chiefly occupied by por- 
ters and others of the lowest orders in society. 

In one of these old closes stands an ancient building, 
long the residence of the Countess of Stair ; and here 
she died, 21st Nov. 1759. From this circumstance, it 
is called Stair's Close until this day. She was the 
youngest daughter of James, second Earl of Loudoun ; 
was a woman of surpassing beauty, a strong mind, 
liberal education, and was married when very young to 
Lord Primrose. This nobleman was a debauched 
blackguard, and treated his lady with the most wanton 
cruelty. One day while dressing she saw in the glass 
his figure approaching the room door in which she 
stood, his face flashing like one of hell's furies, and a 
drawn sword in his hand. Happily her chamber win- 
dow was open, she sprung through into the street, 
half dressed as she was, and very prudently fled to the 
house of his mother, who was a widow, where she 
claimed and received the protection she deserved. 



82 THOKPURN's JOURNAL. 

Shortly after this, the husband left the rountry ami 
took up his abode in Holland. About this lime, there 

appeared in Edinburgh i noted foreign conjure! or 
fortune-teller, He professed, among other wonders, to 
show you the present condition orsituation of any per- 
son in whom you might feel an interest. Lady Prim- 
rose, who had lost all trace of her husband, was Incited 

by curiosity to go with i female friend to the house o( 
this person in the Canongate. Lady Primrose, having 
described the individual in whose fate she was interest- 
ed, and having expressed a desire to know what he was 
at present doing, the conjurer led her to a large mirror, 
in which site beheld the inside of a ehureh, witli a mar- 
riage part\ arranged near the altar — the bridegroom was 
her husband; the ceremony went on, and just .is the 
priest was bidding the parties to join hands, a gentle- 
man, in whom Lady Primrose recognised as her bro- 
ther, entered the ehureh, made up to the parties, and 

immediately all was eonfusion, ami the whole scene 
vanished. When Lady Primrose got home, she wrote 

a narrative of the whole transaction; to which she ap- 
pended the day o( the month, sealed it np in the pre- 
sence o( a witness, and locked it up in her beieau. 
Soon after this her brother returned; she asked, if in 
his wanderings he had seen aught oi her husband. 
The young man answered, that he wished lie might 
never agaio hear that detested personage mention- 
ed. Lady Primrose, however, continued her ques- 
tions, when it finely eame out, that being in Am- 
sterdam, and introduced to an opulent merchant, who 
had a beautiful daughter, an only child, the merchant 
invited him to the marriage of his daughter, which was 
to take plaee that night ; and added, that the bride- 
groom being a Scotchman, his company would be the 



thoki'.uhn's journal. S3 

more: agreeable. The brother was detained — the cere- 
mony proceeding — when he entered the church just 
tine enough to prevent Me union of an amiable young 
lady to the greatest monster alive in human ihape — 

viz. his own brother-in-law, Lord I'rimro 

Lady PrimrO i d her brother on what day the 

circumstance which be related took place. Having 

been informed, she gave the key to her brother, and 
requested him to open a drawer which she de eilbed in 

her bureau, and bring her the aforesaid sealed package. 
The packet being opened, it was discovered that Lady 
Primrose bad seen the shadowy representation of her 
husband's abortive nuptials on the very evening they 

were transacted in reality. 

This story may excite a smile from the incredulous 

reader. It fell out, however, into the bands of honour- 
able men and women, who eould have neither motive 
nor interest in imposing on the credulity of their own 
family and friends. That the circumstances, as related, 
did take place, is a fact as stubborn in history as that 
Bonaparte died in St. Helena. In earth, sea, and sky, 
the- : are mysteries unexplored which philosophy 
never dreamt of/ 

The Back Stairs, 

An old access from the Cowgate to the Parliament 
Square. A very extraordinary tragedy of private life 
is connected with the history of this close. It happened 



* Lord Primrose died some years after, when sho married the 
Earl of Stain. 



St thouiurn's journal. 

about i century ago, and will remind the reader of* 
celebrated tale of ancient Kome. 

A young Englishman of the name of Gayley, who 
held the situation of commissioner in the customs, w as 
so imprudent as to contract an attachment to Mrs. 
Macfarlane, the wife of a writer* in Edinburgh. On 
Saturday. September 30th, 1710. Mrs. Macfarlane was 
exposed, by the treachery of Mr. Cayley's landlady, 
(with whom she was acquainted,) to an insult o( the 
most atrocious kind OD his part, in the house where 

he Lodged, Next Tuesday, Mr* Cayley waited upon 
Mrs. Macfarlane, at her own house, and was shown 
into the drawing-room. His friends said he went to 
make an apology. Others said he attempted to repeat 

the insult which he had formerly offered — wnereupon 

she rushed into another room, and presently came 
back with a pair of pistols in her hand. On her bid- 
ding him leave the house instantly, lie said, " what, 
madam, d'ye design to act a comedy -'" To which she 
answered, that "he would find it a tragedy it" he did 
not retire.' 1 The infatuated man persisting- in his ob- 
ject, she tired off one of the pistols, which, however, 
only Wounded him slightly in the left wrist, the bullet 
slanting down into the floor. The mere instinct oi' self- 
preservation, probably caused him to draw his sword; 
but, before he coulci use it, she fired the other pistol, 
the shot o( which penetrated his heart. She immedi- 
ately left the room, locked the door upon the dead body, 
and sent a servant for her husband. On his coming 
home, she took him by the sleeve, and leading him into 
the room where the corpse lay, explained the cireuni- 



* An Attorney, or lawyer. 



thorburn's journal. 85 

•iancei which led to the bloody act. The husband, 
leeing the necessity for prompt measures, went out to 
consult with his friends. They all advised that he 
should convey his wife away privately, to prevent her 
lying in gaol, till a precognition should be taken of the 
aflair. Accordingly about o'clock she walked down 
the. high street, followed at a little distance by her 
husband, and so absconded. 

The thing continued a profound secret to all except 
those concerned in the house, when Mr. Macfarlane, 
(having provided a safe retreat for his wife,) returned 
and discovered the matter to tin, magistrate, who 
viewed the body of the defeased.* A most careful in- 
vestigation was made into every circumstance connec- 
ted with this fatal affair, hut without demonstrating any 
tiling, except the passionate rashness or magnanimity 
of the fair murdress. Mr. Macfarlane was discharged 
upon his own affirmation, that he knew nothing of the 
deed till after it had taken place. 

It will surprise every one to learn that this Scottish 
Lucrece was a woman of only nineteen or twenty years 
of age, and some months encient, at the time when she 
so boldly vindicated her honour. It is said she found 
protection and concealment for some time at Swinton 
House in Jicrwickshire — where a young lady of the 
family entering the parlor one day, when all the rest 
were at church, saw a lovely vision pouring out tea, 
whom she at first thought to be an enchanted queen. 

Mrs. Swinton was after wards informed by her mother, 
that the lady was Mrs. Macfarlane, who had some claims 



* It is a curious fact, there is not such an officer known in 
Scotland as a Coroner. If there is now, it is of very recent date. 

8 



96 tuorv.vun's jovknal. 

ititudo upon them, and was hero in hiding fOT het 
life. What became of her afterwards is not generally 
known. Bui Mrs. Sw inton's gran Ison, 8b? Walter 
Scott, has made a fictitious use of this incident in his 
noNcl ot" M Peveril of the Peak." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Edinburgh continued — A Remarkable Beggar — Anti- 
quarian Museum — John Knox's Pulpit — Covenan- 
ters' Flag — Jenny Geddes' Stool — and Mrs. Grant of 
Laggan, fyc. 

January 10. — About 9 o'clock this morning I saw a 
woman sitting on a cold stone begging — it rained at the 
time. She had no umbrella — was nursing a child at each 
breast — said they were twins. I threw in my mite. I 
thought the police ought to have seen to this ; it was in 
a very public street. I should like to have had Mrs. 
Trollope by my elbow at this moment. Visited the 
museum of the Antiquarian Society. The pulpit of 
John Knox, the Scottish reformer, stands in one of the 
rooms ;* also a silk flag taken from the Covenanters at 



* Almost every one who visits the museum have a wish to stand 
in this pulpit. The managers, fearing lest this perpetual motion 
would bring it to pieces, had the stairs cut off. I also had a wish to 
stand in this hot bed of reformation. I told the secretary I would 
not ask to infringe on any positive order of the house, but if there 
could be any exception, I certainly would like to enter that pulpit. 
He handed a chair, and helped me in at once. I must say I felt 
pleased when my feet stood where stood the feet of that great 
man, and my hands rested on that sacred desk from whence 
streams flowed as pure as ever watered the city of God. The 
pulpit is of hard oak, and has never been painted ; it is still in 
good repair, though nearly 300 years old. 



8S tiiokiukn's journal. 

the battle of Both well Bridge in 1550. The Hag bears 
the follow ing motto \ 

Covenants, Religion, King and Country. 

For an interesting account o( this battle, see Sir 
Walter Scott's History of Old Mortality, in the Tales 
ot* My Landlord. 

Jenny Geddes's stool is also standing here. It is 
formed from four pieces of timber crossed, with a piece ot* 
black leather for a top, so when stretched out and set 
d< w n. it makes a seat in the shape of a small bed cot — 
when lifted it folds up, and it may be carried in the hand. 
This stool is a relic connected w ith a very important part 

o( Scottish history. Jenny Geddes kept a stall in the 
high street of Edinburgh for retailing vegetables. I 

think it was about the year \(M\0, when Charles II. 
was so anxious to introduce episcopacy into Scotland, 
that Jenny Geddes and her stool is first heard of in the 
annals oi' Scotland. 

In those days there were no pews in the churches, 
and at the present day in the old chapels and cathedrals 
in England, there is not seats enough to aceomm. 
the one half of the congregation. In Westminster 
Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, but more especially in 
the latter, the greater part ot the pews and seats are oc- 
cupied by readers, chanters ami singers : the majority of 
the congregation stand during the whole of the service. 
"Well, the important Sabbath day arrived when, in obe- 
dience to the king's proclamation, prayers were to be 
read in all the churches of Scotland. The people al- 
most to a man, were opposed to this anti-Christian inno- 
vation, as they termed the reading of prayers. Jenny, 
as her custom was while the bell was tolling, might be 



seen plodding along the high .street, entering the auld 
kirk, placing her stool and her person very compo 
under the pulpit or readi . 'I he organ thrums off 

a 10I0. Jenny sent forth a heavy groan. The bishop 
on hi- feet, white surplice, black gown, white bands, 
powdered wig, and all his canonicals in order. Jenny 
thought he was the very pope himself. He proceeds, 
" Dearlybeloved brethren, the scripture moveth us,&o." 
Jenny thought with herself that the deHl was m 
him. JIc calls on the dean to read the collect for the 
day. She jumps up, and exclaims in her Scottish dia- 
lect, " the mucklc deHl, colic the name 0* ye ! will ye 
say mass in my face!" and flinging the stool at his 
head, commenced an insurrection which continuing 
for twenty-eight years, terminated in the overthrow of 
the Stewarts by the revolution of 10SS, which placed 
William on the throne of Britain. 

Mrs. (irant, of Laggan, in Scotland, is well known 
to the literary world. Her book on the Superstitions 
of the Highlanders and Cottagers of Glenbirnie, has 
been much extolled, but her work entitled The Ameri- 
can Lady, published in New-York in 1814, is consider- 
ed her chef d'eeuvre. In giving the History of Aunt 
Schuyler, she has admirably portrayed the primitive 
simplicity of the worthy Dutch settlers — true to nature 
and to the letter. For a considerable period she was 
believed to be the writer of the Tales of -My Landlord. 

On the 5th of February, at 11 o'clock in the morn- 
ing, I called to see this venerable lady. The servant 
informed me that she never saw company until after 2 
o'clock. As she is now upwards of four score years old, 
and as many of the gentry in Edinburgh and London 
go to bed at sunrise, and get up when the sun goes 



M nroiti • un's loi rh \ 

down» # (for I wis more than onet invited to din© in 
both cities at 9 P If.) I thought, perhaps, aha 

" She is *' 

•• u she dressed " S Sfou know that among 

the ladies being i -- ins more than merely 

their shoulders 
1 had trarelled some - ..-.'. S 

see tins interesting woman, and ith to 

measure the same ground twice, without effecting m] 
l i >ok •• Gil 6 this to \ out 

mistress, and - sider it s par- 

ticular favour, u" she will grant me onlj three minutes 
conversation*" The girl returned immediately, and 
said, "Will j tlk up stairs!" In the 

middle of an elegant parlour sat the old lady, her 

t>\ ared with hooks 
and writin ••!>. •• B< >od, sir,' 1 said she, 

" as to hand yourself i - id sit down bj me I am 

not so able no? to wait upon my friends as I was 

ird — 
s printed "Grant Thorbi rn, New-York" 
sdher fing i "New-York," and obs4 

s is a passport dut." 

We sat and conversed tor hours — the] s, 
minutes. She he time when Niagara was 

alv fort on the northern frontier. Herfathei 
an officer in the r.e stioned there, near!] eight] 

Site referred to the da] s a ben the Cu] lers, 
tho Nan Rensselaers, the Schuvlers, tho Delancvs, 



phrase, l 

L discuss . or mou 

most proper. Th« wiso men ©t" London general!) agreed that 
jujutaraw. rest. 



TBOBSURM JOURNAL. U\ 

the lTan Courtlandts, the Tcnl and the Beek- 

■ i play f rj :• r ■ OoL VS ij #; ij i info. 

her that I had the pleasure - acquaint; 

wild /nun) of the descendants of these old worthies, 
and that I i ; > rase in no , her 

film) <\< glistened iritfa pleasure. She rememfc 
Albany when it contained only two 
the bank of the river, the otbei (uou ) run- 

down from tin; old fort on the top of the bilL in 
the centre of the itreet itood the market. The only 
bub I i Indian ; and in place of bu< 

there '■■■>'■ the squaw, with \\<u- moccasins, bea 
pum, and wild fruit. The English and Dutch eh 
(lately removed,) the guard house and town huh 
braced all the public buildin Bj the way, it would 
be a curious matter, could it he arrived at in any man- 
ner, to ascertain bow many pipe-, of old Virginia 
•moked in this same old ball, from il 
decline! She remembered the time well when the 

SCOWS came up laden wish bricks from Holland, to he 

'i sd in building ho I odd trait 

in the history of these honest Dutchmen, that although 

Albany is built on a mountain of clay, and the country 

around thmn, at that time, a forest of tree-;, yet they 
found 00 head long to mould a brick. 

dry enough to bum a kiln. They partook largely of 

the spirit of the sober-:- sided company, which comp 

the adventurous party sent out from ,\c rdarn 

to explore the mighty Hudson. A few, more time 
than the rest, gave up the pursuit; and, notwithstand- 
ing -'ill "the world was before them whereto choose," 

no ipol could they find, whereon to build a city, more 

suitable than the low swamp on the bank- of the Kiln r, 

where soon rose Communipaw, that flourishing city of 
the lakes. But this is adigression. 



92 thorburn's journal. 

Mrs. Grant alluded to the unsophisticated time in the 
history of the past, when the lads and lasses of Albany 
— brothers, sisters, cousins, and sweethearts — the boys 
with gun, axe, and fishing-tackle — the girls with their 
knitting work, cakes and pies, tea and sugar — sallied 
out into the woods, of a fine summer's morning, to 
spend the long day in innocent amusements, to gather 
and eat wild fruit — more sweet from the hand of each 
one's favourite lassie — and to tell their tales of honest 
affection. As she rehearsed these scenes, the days of 
aulcl lang syne seemed to start from their long slumber. 
"Ah ! those were happy days," said she ; and her dim 
eyes lighted, up like the flittering blaze of an expiring 
lamp, and she seemed to live over again the season of 
her youth. She made pointed inquiries after the widow 
of the much lamented Hamilton, with whom she was a 
school-mate. She seemed delighted when I informed 
her that she was in comfortable circumstances, enjoyed 
a green old age, and that her sun was going down in peace 
and serenity, in the bosom of her worthy and prosper- 
ous family. At length we parted, mutually wishing 
for that preparation of the heart which alone fits friends 
for entering that world where separation is impossible. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Edinburgh— John Knox's House— Anecdotes of John 
Knox — Register Office — Remonstrance of the Nobles 
and Barons of Scotland to the Pope— College and 
Surgeons' Hall. 

Knox, the reformer, was lodged here by the magis- 
trates in 15(50, on being appointed Parish Minister of 
Edinburgh. The house fronts on the main street. It 
projects some feet. On one corner of the building is a 
stone pulpit, where he stands, as if preaching to the 
people below. On the front of the pulpit is marked — 
" Born 2d May, 1505." Extract from the City Re- 
cords. " On the last day of October, 1561, the provost, 
ballias, and counsail ordanis the dene of Gyld, with all 
diligence, to mak ane warme studye of daillis to the 
Minister, Johne Knox, within his hous, abon the hall 
of the same, with lyht and wyndokis thereunto, and all 
other necessaris." Knox probably lived here until his 
death, Nov. 24, 1572. 

The house is now occupied by two barbers — one 
below, the other up stairs. I got shaved on the ground 
floor, and paid one penny. Next day, as I was curious 
to see as much as possible of this notable house, I got 
shaved up stairs — they charged me two pence. " How 
is this," said I, " your neighbour below charged me 



I 



M 1U0U1U UN's JOIKNAI.. 

only i penny yesterday I" u O, ho," says he," "but 
this is the very room that John Knox studied bis ser- 
mons in. and that it the very winnock (window) that he 
need to preach ou'r to the folks in ihe street." " Well," 
said l. "this being the case, 1 think myself it is worth 
i penny more**' 1 found he was a quisica] old mortal. 
shaving with spectacles on the end of his nose. We 
got in conversation. He was full of anecdotes about 
Jojin Knox — carried me through the house— showed 
the kitchen, sleeping-room, parlour end all; indeed 1 
thought the penn] was well spent Hie said Queen 
Mary [yoka lived in the swell ion the street) and 

John hail Stony S quanel, ami one time she got so 

angry, she said she would have his head cut otV. "Ah, 
madam," say s John, "but he is oooon wha guides the 
gu*Uy, (that is to say, ho is above who guides the knife.) 
On another occasion, she told her courtiers she was 
mors afraid forth* prayers of John Knox, than for an 
army of ten thousand men. She was s deep, dissem- 
bling, politic woman. On one occasion, having a diffi- 
cult matter to manage with John, she treated him in 
the most gracious manner, seating him by her on the 

sofa, holding his hand in hers. &c, She rather got the 
best of the bargain, tor John afterwards remarked to 
one of his friends, M What a pity the tUMshu'd hide his 
abode in stca piece <>' bonny painted clej 

January 10:':-, ^ as shown the interior of the Rr- 

i' . . where I saw many ancient and important 

national documents In a glass case is kept the original 

copy of the articles of union between Scotland and 
England, with the personal signatures of all the nobles 
of both countries. It is dated 22d May. 1700. 

In another glass case, L saw the original copy ot" n 

remonstrance from the nobles, earls, barons, freemen, 



/ 



rnoxni ■!. Of 

nn'l of the Scottish community to die pope, dated 6th 
April, 13 
It contained the signature o4 each person, whose 
is in the Instrument, with I appended to 

01 ribbon; It. ii written in 
Latin f in a clear, plain hand, on a iheet of parchment, 
and i m M4 rears old. It appears that King Ed- 
•>\ England, finding it impossible to conquer 
Scotland with the sword, applied to the pope, (this 
lame Edward, must hare been just inch another poor 
milk ■:. , as the late King of Spain, whom, 

the papers inform us, spent all his time in doing nothing 
swing petticoats,) who issned hi* bull, command- 
ing j'!l the people in Scotland to submit to the authority 
of Edward, under pain of excommunication, and that 
'. on thorn the French, the Germans, the 
Darn:-. Swedes, English and Irish, and iweep them 

from the lace of the earth, and send them ?j|Jt<> by 

thewholesale. The Scotchmen, no way alarmed, coolly 
replied in substance, that as long as there wore one 
hundred men in Scotland who could wave a sword over 
their head, they would neither submit to Edward, to the 

pope, nor to the devil. It is a trait in the national 

character oft.hr; Scots, that even the darkest time* <>\ 
popery, the priests could never lead them so far hy the 

they did iheir more pliable neighbors, the 
French, Germans, English, Irish, d&c., in theii 
twenty-eight years struggle to keep out episeopaey. — 
(Yon will observe, that episcopacy in England and 
Arnc, ' otirely different articles — no Lord Spirit- 

uals here.) They gained for their children a portion of 

liberty no where else to be found except in 
America. 



96 thoriu-kn's journal. 

Through the politeness oi one oi the gentlemen in 

the office, I hid it translated by OD6 of the best Latin 

lars in Edinburgh, its age ami authenticity, with 
the simplicity of its style, make it altogether i historical 

curiosity. 

tfl translation of a copy of the Letter o/tAs Barons, 
Boris, Frrrmcn, and of the Scottish Community, to 
Pope, $tf April, 1380. 

•' In the DOOM of the Most Holy Father, Christ ami 

Lord, we, the oodersigoed, (do hereby declare ourselves 

10 be) by G oil's providence, the humble servants anil 
children oi Lord John the high priest, and minister of 
sacred things at Home, and of the Universal Church; 

Duncan, Karl of Fife; Thomas Randolph, Karl of Mo- 
ray ; Lords Mann and Anuandale ; the heir of Dunbar ; 
Karl of March ; Malicius, Earl of Stratheryne; Lord 
Malcolm ot' Lennox ; Willelm, Karl of Koss Shire ; Karl 

of Cathoeaa and the Orkney Isles, and Willelm, Karl of 

Sutherland: Walter Seneseal Scot ; Willelm of Soulis, 
the head butler of Scotland: .lames. Ear] of Douglas : 
Roger of Mowbray : David, K.arl ofBreehio : David oi 

Graham; Ingeram oi (Jmphraville ; John Guard, of 
Menteith ; accompanied by Menteith; Alexander Kra- 
ser, Gilbert oi Hay, and High Constable oi Scotland; 

Robert of keth. Marshal of Scotland J Henry the Illus- 
trious: John of Graham ; David of Lindsay: Willelm 
Olifaunt, heir of Graham ; John of Jenton i Willelmof 

Abernethy : David of Wemys : Willelm oi the Jixed 
Mount: Fergus oi Ardross; finstachiua of Maxwell; 
Willelm of Ramsay ; Willelm oi the High Mount ; Alan 
of Moray: Donald Campbell: John Cameron: Regi- 
nald of Chen : Alexander of Seton; Andrew ofLesce- 



TrroRI'.CK W'f JOf'RNAL. 07 

and Mexander of Stratoun, and other Baron 

nen, and of the whole community of the Kingdom 
of Scotland Pfot only, oh moat holy Father, do wt 

the filial r< poet, itfi which devotees kiss the feet 
of Saints, hut wo also gather, both from the deed 

ill'- ancients, thai our nation, to wit, that of 
Scotland, has been illustrious for many g doits. 

(Oor nation) coming ii hla .Major, passed the 

pillare of Hercale , and coming through Spain, re 
for many yean among vei t nations, and who wett 

ibjection to no man- Then, after a lapse of twelve 
hundred years, they came Nike the Israelites in their 

c) and dwelt in those habitations nowpoc 
by the exiled Britons and Picts, who are nevertheless 
nearlj de itroyed by the fierce engagements which they 
hare had with the Norwegians, Dacians, and English, 
by which they bare acquired many victories and toila ; 
ami have showed that their children were free from all 
Slavery from their forefathers. Thus far does history hear 
oh ns. En this kingdom, they had one hundred and thirty 
kings of their own of the royal blood, and no foreigner 
taking possession. But He, by whom nobles reign, and 

others shim:, with great effulgence, even the Kin/ of 
kings, oui Lord Jesus Christ, appointed by his most holy 
faith, afier his passion and resurrection, that they should 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, as if they had 
inhabitants. Nor did he wish, that they 
should be Confirmed in their faith, by any one, but by 

their first Apostle, although second, or even third, in 
rank, to wit, our most gracious Andrew the German, 
whom He always wished to preside over them as their 
patron, instead of St. Peter. But our forefathers, and 
moat holy predecessors, thinking anxiously that that 
kingdom, (of Germany, to wit,) belonged by special 

9 



lis THORBURN i journal 

right to St. Peter ! sanctioned the name by many favours, 
and innumerable privileges* Wherefore our nation 
had thus far led i quiet end peaceeble life, under their 
protection, till that greet prince, Edward, king of the 
English, and father of him who is hostilely, (and yet 
under the appearance of a friend ami anally,) infesting 
our (peaceful) bulwark, kingdom and people, conscious 
of neither guile nor mischief, ami unaccustomed to wan 
ami insults, (at least, at that time*) Edward (whom wr 
have above mentioned) committed damages, carnage, 
anil wrongs, plunder and incendiarism, has incarcerated 
the prelates, burned the religious monasteries, spoiling 
them as ho laid them in ruins; ami having committed 
other enormous grievances, and among the rest, has, 
among the common people! spared neither ago. nor sex* 
religion, nor rank. Mo pen is capable of writing; not 
is the understanding capable of comprehending ; neither 
can experience teach, to the full amount, the innume- 
rable e\ ils in which ho delights: hut yet wo are deliver- 
ed by our most valiant prince, king, ami lord, Robert, 
Mho. after ho was cured and healed of his wounds, has, 
Hko another Maccabeus, or Joshua, (reed his poeple 
from the hands of his enemies, ami has suffered Labours, 
toils, troubles, ami dangers, even bordering to death. 

He also has a benign disposition, and is obedient to the 
laws and eustoms. whieh we will sustain even to death. 
The succession pf the law, and the debt whieh we were 
all due, made us assent and agree that he should be 
our chief end king, as being the person through whom 

safety accrues to the people, and who is the defender 

of our liberty, alike In his kindness and by dint offeree ; 
and to whom we wish to adhere in every thing, and de- 
sist from undertakings with the English king ami sub- 
jeets. who. forsooth, wish that we and our kingdom be 



99 

subject to thetnf, and that ire should Instantly dethrone 
our king, at the sub vers or alike of their and our rights, 
and that we. should choose another who ii capable of 
our defence; but ire declare that, as long as a hundred 
Scotsmen can beany where found to stand together, the 
English will never be out roasters — for we do not fight 
i'<>r riches, glory, noi honour, but only for that liberty 
which no man loses except it be accompanied by his 
life. Hence it is, oh reverend Father and Lord! that 
we entreat your holiness, with =:JI manner of supplica- 
tion, instance, and bending of hearts and knees, and that 
we hare thus far recited the ricissitndes of our nation, 
e sojourning among the nations of the earth hare 
neither been a grievance upon grievance, nor an honour. 
Jews are! Greeks, Scotch or ESnglish, who look with a 
father'* eye at the troubles and trials brought upon us 
and the church of God by the English, will see that the 
English king ought to he sufficed with what he posses- 
ses, and will look back to the lime when England was 
wont to be pleased with seven kings to warn and rebuke 
those who required it. But there now remains nothing 

for us Scotsmen, living as we do in exiled Scotland, 

beyond which there is no habitation — there is nothing 
but for Edward to depart in peace, seeing that we d< 

it — for it concei as him, with respect to you, to gfant, and 
it is our desire effectually to procure the peace of the 
state, whatever way wo can. O holy Father! we beg 

you to grant this — you who lookest at the cruelty of Pa- 
gans, with the existing faults of Christians, and the ser- 
vitude of Christians, not lessening the memory of your 
holiness, though your empire is hounded by the Indies. 
If any thing be wanting (to show your holiness the 
true character of the English) behold the ignominy and 
reproach under which the church labours in these your 



100 mount un's .ioik>.u 

timet) this should* therefore, act as an incentive tu 

arouse tome Christian chiefs, w ho make no im ott \i. ami 

n no reason ^iu-Ii as iliai they arc ai war w Lib their 
libours)why they should not frame themselves into 
a bod] tor the protection of ths hoi) lend; but there*] 
i- of this pretence is. thai the] think it requires Less 
exertion, to ctxr] on war with theii loss powerful 
i. ( hhonrs. Hut it" tho English king leavens in peace, 
wo also will £0 and die in ths hoi) land, if such be the 
will of our Lord and sovereign. But the English Kino 
knows enough not to be ignorant, that we hereb) -how 
and declare to tho Vital of Christ, and to the whole 

Christian world, that if your holiness do not deal jusil\ 

between them and us, confusion will Lnevitabl) take 
place — the destruction of oui bodies— -ths exit of oui 
souls— and the other inconvenient consequences which 
will follow, and which we believe the) have imputed 
to us. snd w hich w o ha\ q dons tvi them. From n bat u s 
are end will be. as well from the obedience with which 
sre, as your children, keep our tenets, as from ths good 
feeling which exists between us and you, our head ami 
judge, wo trust our cause will be looked after, thinking 

■J o » 

and hoping firmly, that you will deal rightly with us. 
and will reduce our enemies to nothing, and w ill pre- 
serve the safet] of your holiness, who hast been this 

good while head of this holy ehureh. This was dated 
at the monastery of Abirbrothoe. in Scotland) 6th April. 
lovO. and in the loth year of our kingdom, under our 
kino above mentioned. 

My next \ isit was to the Museum of the Royal Societ) 

of Burgeons, and the day following to the Anatomical 
Museum, and dissecting rooms in the College. The 
professors and other gentlemen showed me marked 
attention. 



TBOBBVBW'l journal. 101 

In one of the Itrgfl rooms is kept the collection which 

belonged to the late Dr. Hunter of London. Th 

said to ho the largest and beit anatomical collection in 

Europe. In visiting these Lnftitutiom the mind ii lost 

Vou there fee the human frame in all its- parts, inward 
.-ifi'l outward, Slid in <''ll its form:-, and deformities. iiut 
fOlnmei could not Contain the matter that might be 
written on these subject! ; and perhaps in no language 
could the inbject he expressed in inch emphatie words, 
as in the 199th Psalm — "Vie Ate fearfully and teoB* 

derfully marie." 

ffn the College, I h-'ivv the skeleton of JJurk, the man 
who was hanged in Edinburgh some years ago tot 
u.\\i<\<Y\hv subjects, and selling them to the doctors for 
dissection. 



9« 



CHAPTER XV, 

Slander on New-York refuted — Holy rood House — 
House of Jeannie Deans — Willie Tamsons Shop — - 
Murder of Rizzio — Anecdote of Sheriff Woods. 

Being in Edinburgh on the 26th January, I observed 
an article in the Evening- Courant of that date to the 
following purport : " We have been informed by the 
Rev. Mr. Grant of Forres, that he was told by a respec- 
table presbyterian clergyman from the United States, 
and now in this country, that in New-York alone, there 
are eighty thousand deists, that the ministers are very 
little respected, and very poorly paid." 

Not liking to see my favourite city so shamefully 
scandalized in a foreign country, I wrote the following 
communication, carried it to the office, and gave it to 
the editor. He read it. Says I, " Will you publish the 
reply?" Says he, " As soon as my partner comes in, 
he shall see it — if you call in an hour I will let you 
know." " If spared, I will call," said I, " but you will 
observe, by the way, that if you don't print it, another 
will. You have been led into an error, and it is your 
duty to correct it." It was published next day. 



'IllOftltl'KX'* JOVKKAL. 103 



7'y /A.'; Editor of thi Gourvnt* 

I) '). i. k <■ 1. 1 h. , Ja n u a i y 2 & t [994* 

I I J J J /Our ],:;){,<;/ pi S •tU?dj V JjJfct, R 

;:l.n.<!i.< 1,1, .:>l<\ tO I;': O tl -I P td ''''"' I 

,ui *-.]«:/ \iy.i.:t D from tin: United .St.:;. 1 ' .-.. ii<: OP* 

.. that " it if computed, thateightyth< 

01 Infidel*, oxi - York ;>Jon^ 

iTork '''>'■ not eotitain eighty thoufand men altogether, 
rood) bad, and indifferent But I w i J J bet ; 

I trunk it WM about tjlil tlllM Ig0 v/lxm 

||j i ■'. .Miy Wright (a Sfcotawoman, Midi of ee 

price i.o oui country,) by the aid i>f thirty #f forty 
Infidel >, moat, U not ajj, of them Euroj wed 

,jj building* which they dedicated to the God of 
j\;j t.ur *-, under the name of " The Temple of 

early twelre months Mi v. Pann 
ration* of | until rabble, the of. 
ihe occasionally officiating m the Godden of R< 
Pat (deifcp being both unpopular and unJafhioneblc in 

York.) the unhappy fi unable to j,.->y /or 

the buildings the i ght« [f 

and i . now oecupied by the methodiati m a <;fnjj,<;j, 
a/here the goa pel if preached* InN< there arc 

two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants; then 
aJUo above one hundred and fifty churches, chap* 
meeting-ho the ministers receive (ton one le 

three tbouaand dollars per annum. It if, therefore, 
not true, that the miniaters ire treated with di 
jt. true, thai | not well paid. 

H , forty yoar;-. m .V:',v-York, arid 

lately spent three months, about Loudon, Lrrerpoo), 

and ivijfjt; irgh ; but* from all I bevc teen, J think 



UM nioum'UN's joruNAt. 

there is more external respect paid to the Btbbath in 

New-York, than in any of the above eitios. As a proof 

of khia at jerti m, J v ill state, then \> i law of the *- i i > 
which fives each church the privilege of stopping up 
the street opposite the place of worship, in the tine of 
service, bj fastening an iron ehain across the street; a 
decent regulation this, which perhaps no city in Britain 

Otn boast o(. 

i am, &c Grant Th or burn, 

of New-York. 

The Evening Courant is a warm church and ! 

paper. The seporotton papers all over the country, 
republished this letter with numerous remarks. There 
wm a targe separation meeting to bo held in Edin- 
burgh the week following, Two gentlemen called to 

sco it I would attend, ami state what 1 know about the 

American churches Bays 1. "Gentlemen, when 
Washington was the firs! President of the United States, 
1 was naturalised, l wish all the world enjoyed the 
same religious ami civil privileges that we da But, as 
1 have neither Km nor part in your church ami staid 
wore 1 even competent to the task, n would bo highly 
improper in mo to open my mouth in public vn the 
subject. I saw my adopted city scandalised, so 1 thought 

I hail a right, being on the spot, to speak in hot- indi- 
cation." They acknowledged the propriety of my re- 
marks, and so it ended. 

1 made some inquiries, but could hoar of no presbj 
lorian minister in Scotland, except Mr. Fraser from 
Mew Jersey. I called at hislodings. \\c denied being 

the author — said his views wont with the scparationistt. 

Holy rood House, long- the palace of the kings of 

Scotland, was founded by King David 1- A. P. 11 »S. 



THORBVRir'f ;or:i(NAi.. J 05 

;in<i like most other religious establishments of the 
dark ages, originated ki superstition. The account 
giren in, that U pas established by that monarch to 
perpetuate the memory of a miraeulone interpoeition 
of heaven, laid to have been manifested in bit favour. 
The even tie thai nan atecL >'Theking, ivhile hunting bn 
one of the ioy;il forests v/nich surrounds the . 
and hills near Edinburgh — observe, thii was on rood 
day (or the day of the exaltation oi the arose) — 
wan attached by b stag, and erould bare fallen a sacri- 
fice to its i'ury, when lo ! an aim, holding 111 Its hand a 

crass of the moat dazzling brilliancy interposed bett 
him and the enraged bea t- At. sight of the eroas, the 
animal fled away in great fright, bowling into tin; wil- 
derness. So out <>i gratitude foi thif great deliverance, 
lie erected the :\\>\».y on the pot. 

Immediately ebove the <\<><>v of the sbbey in a small 
square tablet, with the following ineeripti 

II*. shall build Ane ho 
For My Name, And I will 
i. sblisfa the Throne 
of J I i h Kingdom 

Por liver. 

In this abbey, emong tin: crumbling monuments of a 
thousand generations, the trophies of war end emblems 
of royalty, is a plain stone with the following inscrip- 
tion : 

Heir, Lyin, Ane, ilonest Woman 

Calet, Marget IJakster, 

SpoVs-to-Bartle^H-Meltrn, 



100 TllORlU'KN « JOURNAL. 

Dtk # *MtJier*BurgetfOf*ye*GaDeii*gtit| 
Dt,-ee su 4691 

>lemem-To-Mori. 

The above la an extol copy, letters, spelling, marks 
ami figurea. 

In fancy, 1 ran eled for hours In this ancient structure, 
among the bonea and the acullai Ike Bcenea and the ac« 
tors, who have all made their axit) during the short 
dance oft thousand fenerations, 

In going the rounds of the palace, we enter a long 
narrow chamber, evidently partitioned off from what 
had been originally one large parlour, As you enter 
the door, is the spot w here Etisiio waa murdered, There 
is still to be aeon a black stain on the hoards of some 
foot in circumference, said to be occasioned by the 
blood which was left unwashed till next morning. The 
queen, it is said, to hide this frightful spot from daily 
meeting her, eyes, had the partition above mentioned 
run aoroaa ihr room. Next to the presence chamber 

is a small room 10 feet square. In this room, the queen 
Was Bitting at supper with the Countess ot Argyle, 
tbout S o( the clock, on the 0th ol Mareh 1660. There 
is a private stair which leads from the chapel and a se- 
eret door to enter this room; this door is concealed hv 
tapestry, remnants ot' whieh are yet hanging. And is 
probtbl) the same that was rudel\ brushed aside by (lie 
mailed hand ot' the iron-hearted Kulhven, or lifted to 
admit the stately form Of Darnley. Through this door 

the king conveyed himself, Lord Ruthven, (in full ar- 
mour,) George Douglas ami two others. Rinio Bat on 



* A short sword. 



ruonmvmwM jovumal. 107 

ide ol the room. i m ent of 

': the <\U<;Cti and eOUUfc <) 

them enter irith their nal be fled to the 

queenam berarm* TheririBanfl olio 

bei b n e bin from - Into 

anotht parlotrr, and dragged bim loan outer ehaml 

bo ; 'U the time crying most pitifully to tj.< 
till t: 

theii ' .\ot long niter I ered 

of ;j son, M- ".< | V L) It ,r<l that 

could never look on blood without faintin 
'I be only relle of Rizzio now to be een, . a wralk- 

., with bi on it 

jo old characters, irhiel intb< \lu$ewmof 

the Antiquarian Society, Edinburgh, When 

i d g tfa i - £ '/. 7 // i . tie eolle c Hon s 

of glorei which belonged to the hapless Mary* 
[thai been tlanderously .<.. thai Mary 

vrai too Intimate with Rizzio, and that jealous*] ... I ei 
eause of h. I hare found 

nothing in history to convince me that ineh iras the i 

Wot 11. y own part, I think "uno 

that tOO much refined forth- oved 

in. Having b< edand edneated at the aeeons- 

it were 

alone* ame rrbulent, warlike Highland* 

iralltf prefer the ol the 

i company 

of .•). people ivhose language fhe did not on< 

ill/./JO '.--;;- :j SOrt Of pi ' .', and, of CO 

mueh in her pretence, which offended those proud 

Scottish noUc-s, and caused thern to plot Ins death. 
&OOU after this Mary reoigtted the crown in favour of 



108 thorbitrn's journal. 

her infant son, James VI. The rest of her life was one 
continued series of imprisonment and privation, during 
which period she behaved with wonderful magnanimity. 
Here, too, we are shown the apartments occupied by- 
Louis XVIII., Charles X., and the rest of the royal ex- 
iles of France, and also the room and the throne where 
George IV. held his court in 1822. 

I next visited the house ofJeannie Deans. It stands 
embosomed in a parterre of roses and shrubbery at the 
foot of Salisbury Craigs, and invites all tourists who. 
descend the hill to refresh themselves before they pur- 
sue their laborious journey. To stand in the house 
once occupied by one of the loveliest and most interest- 
ing of all the heroines of the Wizard of the. North, 
and to think I could claim nativity with a character so 
perfect, gave me feelings of no ordinary nature. The 
appeal of this simple Scottish maiden to Queen Caro- 
line, when pleading for the life of her puir sister Effie, is 
perhaps the most beautiful specimen of natural elo- 
quence on record. 

In one of the small streets of Edinburgh called JSid- 
dries Wynd, some time ago there lived an eccentric 
character, named Willie Tamson. He exhibited a sign 
bearing this singular inscription, 

" Orrd things bought and sold here" — 
which signified that he dealt in odd articles, such as a 
single shoe buckle, one of a pair of skates, a teapot 
wanting a lid, or perhaps as often a lid without a teapot. 
By this craft, however, this curious mortal contrived to 
earn a decent living; for it is a trait in human nature, 
that when a store or person gets the reputation for sell- 
ing cheap, every one takes it for granted that it must 
be so. For instance, we have seen persons flocking to 
the shop where damaged linen was advertised for sale, 



thorburn's journal. 109 

and paying two cents per yard more for the damaged 
than what they could have got it for, dry and unsoiled, 
in another store. 

80 it was by this craft that our friend Willie thrived, 
for every housewife that had an odd shoe, or an odd 
glove, or an odd part of a scissors, or an odd half of a 
pair of tongs, all went to Willie Tarnson to get them 
paired; in short, he was perhaps the greatest match 
maker in Europe;. 

Mr. Woods, who is a gentleman of landed property, 
and sheriff of the county of Mid Lothian, has lately 
established a school in the New Town of Edinburgh at 
his own expense, for the education of 300 poor and 
destitute children. It is his practice to visit the 
school every day, and put questions to them from the 
subject on which they are reading. A class was read- 
ing in the Bible at a place where, among other evil 
propensities, man is described as a backbiter. Mr. 
Woods began at the head, and put the question to each 
boy in the class, What is a backbiter? Not one could 
tell, till at the foot of the class, where stood a poor lit- 
tle, half-naked, half-starved looking boy. " Well," 
said Mr. Woods, " my little fellow, can you tell me 
what is a backbiter?" The boy looked up, with a 
pitiful face, and in a whining tone of voice replied, 
"It's a louse, sir." I was told that Mr. Woods was 
so amused with the answer, that he gave the boy a 
crown, and has promised to look after his future pros- 
pects. 



10 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Talcs from the Highways and Hedges — James VI. and 
Money-finder — Dumfries — Anecdotes of Paul Jones 
— Battle of Both we 1 1 Bridge — Glasgow its Mer- 
chants, Cathedral and Commerce — Anecdote, 

DuMFfclEi la not only the county town of (ho shire, 
but may be termed the capital of the southwestern 
province of Scotland* The town derives a melancholy 

interest from havinirhecn tor some years the residence 
of Robert Hums : the place where he breathed his last, 
and where all of him that could die has been deposited. 
1 made a short stay among- the intelligent, sedate, and 
substantial inhabitants of this prosperous town, where 
I learned the following anecdote: — In the reign of 
James VI. there lived in this town a poor but honest 
laboring man. It was then the custom o( all ranks to 
give entertainments on yule-day ;* but this man one year 
found his funds so low, that it was not in his power to 
be neehour-like on that occasion. So, in this dilemma, 
he resolved to eo out of town and leave his wife in the 

CI 

house, locking the door upon her, and enjoining- her in 
case any person called, not to answer, lie went to 
dig peats, and, before he had worked an hour, lie struck 
on a pot containing a quantity of gold pieces. He 
knew that all treasure found in such a way, by law r , be- 

* Christmas. 



11] 

longed to looking* So away he trudgee, making a pil- 
grimage to London on foot, and tender* die pionc 
the king* .lame- proj 10 much struck with the be 
simplicity of the moo* that be told Dim to keep the mo- 
ney and build a bonee with it, and irben be (the I 

cu/m, back to " auld Scotland." be would accept, ? t s suffi- 
cient compensation, one night's lodging \h\<\(-a Iti roof. 

The man built the bonee*. end the king lodged in it ac- 
cordingly. This .veil authenticated ; it bae 

been handed down from generation to generation in the 

town. A great-granddaugbtei of the treaeure-fi 

died in Dumfriee* since the beginning of the pr< 

century. 

Kirkcudbright lea thrifing little tea port in thoehire 
ofGallowaj i ii famous for beingtbe birth-place of 

Paul .Jon en. St.. .Mar;. '-. Isle, about a mile from thi« 
town, Ii the feat of the Earl of Selkirk. The father of 

Paul, was gardener to the earl. An anecdote of his 

youth, Conner; ted with the garden* has heen pre* 

by tradition. The gardener of St. Mary's Isle, at that 

time, was one of the old fashioned port; parterre cor- 

reeponding with parterre, summer-house with Bummer- 

', every thing in short had its douhJe ; and' the 

different sides of the central walk were as regularly 

alike, as the different sides of a man's face. All this 
was the taste of the old Earl Dunbar, who was inch a 

stickler for the system of duplicate resemblance** that 

it ii probable, had lie heen struck on one fide by the 

palsy, lie would have regrotod no part of his misfortune 
so much*, as the want of correspondence between the 

different parts of bis frame* The carl, coming one day 

into the garden, saw a hoy looking through the barred 
window of one of the summer-houses, he asked old 
Paul how he carne there. " Why," said Paul, " I 



112 thorburn's journal. 

caught him stealing fruit, and clapped him up till I 
should know what your lordship would be pleased to 
have done with him." The earl then happened to turn 
his eye to the corresponding summer-house on the 
other side, and observed Mr. Paul's own son looking 
through the corresponding window. " What !" ex- 
claimed the nobleman, " has John been stealing fruit 
too ?" " Na," quoth the gardener ; "if it please your 
lordship, I only pat him in for symmetry." 

When Paul Jones was hovering with his fleet on the 
coast of Britain, during the war of the American revo- 
lution, he paid his native town a visit. He landed on 
St. Mary's Island, and sent 16 of his men to visit Lord 
Selkirk's house. They brought off a quantity of plate, 
which was returned by Paul in the same state as when 
taken away. It was supposed, his object was to have 
made a prisoner of Lord Selkirk ; he would have been 
a good hostage to the Americans. 

The news of an armed force having landed on St. 
Mary's soon reached Kirkcudbright, and^occasioned 
the greatest alarm. The people ran hither and thither, 
backwards and forwards, up streets and down streets, 
every one making inquiries, and no one possessing any 
intelligence; the people in the east end of the town, 
carrying their goods and gear to the west end of the town ; 
and those in the west just as busy carrying their's east. 
All was hurry, bustle and confusion ; at length, the 
people collected some of their scattered courage, and 
getting an old crazzy twenty-four pounder down to the 
beach, triumphantly defied the departing Americans. 
During the night-watch, somebody called out that he 
saw Jones's ship at a little distance from the shore, 
and the cannon was by trembling hands brought to bear, 
and fired at the object he pointed out. No answer was 



fttORStJftN*s Journal. il3 

returned from the supposed ship ; and the good burgh* 
ers thinking him disabled, resolved by no means to 
spare him, even in his misfortunes, continued the can- 
nonade with might and main. " For the love of God, 
more powder !" was an exclamation often uttered that 
night, in the urgent distress of the assailants for sup- 
plies of ammunition. At last, when morning dawned, 
and when they thought they must have completely 
destroyed the object of their mighty rage, to their 
inconceivable mortification and shame, it turned out 
that they had been all along wasting their powder, 
their balls, their courage, and their exertions, upon an un- 
compromising rock, which stood a little way from shore. 

At the present day, there are few who can believe* 
were it not on record undisputed, in what terror this 
man held the inhabitants of Britain, living within ten 
miles of the sea. For a number of years, I remember 
hearing the noise of his cannon, when he visited the 
Firth-of-Forth, about the year 1782. And though our 
town was upwards of four miles from the shore, when 
it was known that he was on the coast, people hid their 
valuables, and the troops were under arms all night. 
And so frightful was his name, I have heard mothers 
and nurses sing out to quiet their children, hush, hush ! 
there's, Paul Jones coming. 

In the shire of Galloway is the parish of Anwoth. 
This place is worthy of notice, as having been once un- 
der the ministerial charge of the celebrated Samuel 
Rutherford. His name is still the presiding genius of the 
place ; it is attached to all the localities ; and the people 
preserve numerous characteristic reminiscences of him 
and his habits. 

It is told that Archbishop Usher, hearing the fame' 
of Rutherford* once came to Anwoth, in order to con* 

io* 



114 

verse with him. A romantic species of adventure* 
which seems to have been common among distinguished 
authors, before the press and post-office had given such 
facilities to intellectual correspondence. 

He appeared at the manse* on a Saturday night, in 
the guise of a beggar, and solicited lodging, which 
Was readily granted. He was desired to sit down in 
the kitchen, where Mrs. Rutherford soon after, accord- 
ing to custom, catechised the servants, and with them 
the apparent beggar. She asked him, how many com- 
mandments there were? to which he answered, eleven. 
She was shocked at his ignorance, and commented upon 
it in no very respectful terms ; but she did not the 
less on that account show to him the hospitality of a 
Scottish matron of the period. She gave him a good 
supper, and sent him up to a bed in the garret. This 
was the very situation in which the bishop wished to 
be placed, for he was mainly induced to undertake this 
strange pilgrimage by a desire to hear Mr. Rutherford 
pray, and he now expected to hear his private devotions. 
Being disappointed however in this expectation, he 
resolved to pour out his own soul in prayer to his ma- 
ker. He prayed with so much fervency and elo- 
quence, that Rutherford started out of bed, put on 
his clothes, came up and told the stranger, that he 
was sure he could be no other than Bishop Usher. 
The bishop confessed who he was, and consented to 
preach next day in Anwoth Church, obtaining a promise 
however, that no one should be made acquainted with 
his secret. Furnished with a suite of Mr. Rutherford's 
clothes, the bishop, early in the morning, went out to 
the fields ; the other followed him, and soon after 
brought him in as a strange minister passing by, who 

* Minister's house 



thorburn's journal. US 

had promised to preach for him. Mrs. Rutherford 
found that the poor man had gone away before any of 
the family were out of bed. After domestic worship 
and breakfast, the family went to the kirk. The bishop 
took for his text, (John xiii. 1 34,)" a new commandment. 
I give unto you, that ye love one another." In the 
course of his sermon, he observed, that this might be 
considered the eleventh commandment. Upon which, 
the minister's wife said to herself, " this is the answer 
the poor man gave me last night," and looking up to 
the pulpit, added ;" " can it be possible that this is he !" 
After public worship, the strange minister and Mr. 
Rutherford spent the evening with mutual satisfaction. 
And, early on Monday morning, the former went away 
without being discovered. 

Drumclog is the name of a Farmstead near Lanark- 
shire, not far from Strathaven. It was here on the 3d 
of June, 1679, that Grahame of Claverhouse, was de- 
feated by a party of the covenanters, whom he went 
forth to disperse and destroy, while they were assent 
bled at public worship among the hills on the Sabbath 
day. 

Bothwell Bridge, along which passes the chief road 
from Hamilton to Glasgow, was the scene of a total 
defeat of the Covenanters by the Duke of Monmouth, 
on the 22d of June, 1697. Elated (viz. the covenanters) 
with their late victory, they were here collected in great 
numbers. They had taken the precaution to divest of 
its parapets that part of the bridge upon which the 
enemy would require to advance. The main body of 
the army lay in large dense squares upon the face of 
the park, within a quarter of a mile of the bridge, while 
three hundred of their best men, under the command 
of Hackstone of Rathillet, were posted at the end of 
the bridge to defend this important pass, 



116 

The Duke of Monmouth advanced to disperse them. 
He found them in a state of irresolution and confusion. 
One party were for laying down their arms, and accept- 
ing such terms as they could get — the other insisted on 
uncompromising warfare. The party under Hackstoun 
defended the bridge until their ammunition was expen- 
ded, when they had to retreat to the main body. Claver- 
house, burning to avenge his late discomfiture, then 
crossed the bridge with his dragoons, and falling upon 
the distracted rustics, completed their defeat. Four 
hundred men were slain in the chase which ensued. — 
Many were carried prisoners to Edinburgh, where they 
endured cruel mocking with scourgings, bonds and im- 
prisonment—being tortured, hanged, and tormented. — 
But of them the world was not worthy ; though they 
have been branded with zeal without knowledge, yet it 
is probable that the world is indebted to them for what- 
ever portion of rational liberty it enjoys, for the good 
people continued the struggle until they finally drove 
the tyrant from his throne. 

Glasgow occupies a highly convenient situation upon 
the north bank of the Clyde, (Shire of Lanark,) similar, 
though upon a smaller scale, to that of London, upon 
the same bank of the Thames, — namely, a plain, gently 
ascending from the brink of the river, covered with 
streets ancient and modern. The bridges over rivers 
which skirt or rather intersect both, complete the re* 
semblance of the second to the first city of the British 
empire. 

The streets are in general regular, while many of 
them may be called fine ; and what adds greatly to the 
pleasure experienced by a stranger in contemplating 
them, is, that all are filled during the whole day by 
crowds of prosperous and happy-looking people, whey 



JOURNAL. 117 

walk at a lively pace, and in whose eyes some animating 
purpose of business or of pleasure may constantly be 
read. 

The men of Glasgow — for by this noble appellation 
are they distinguished in popular phraseology from the 
folk at Greenock, and the bodies of Paisley, — shine pe- 
culiarly in the walk of social hospitality. There is an 
openness of heart about them that at once wins the 
affection and admiration of strangers. They are pros- 
perous ; and prosperity disposes them to take the world 
well. Before Glasgow had arrived at its present pitch 
of prosperity, many of the earlier merchants were 
yonger sons of the neighboring gentry. When the 
Virginia and other foreign trade, therefore, prospered 
in their hands, and enabled them to hold up their heads, 
they did not fail to comport themselves as men, who 
had not only a little blood, but moreover a good deal of 
money also. These men, which formed a sort oi mer- 
cantile aristocracy, are no more to be found — they are 
completely superseded and lost. Their places are filled 
by the honourable mechanic, who by industry and enter- 
prise, have rose from the owner of one shuttle to be the 
owner of a million of spindles. 

The cathedral at Glasgow is the only one in Scot- 
land that escaped the misguided zeal of the presbyte- 
rians at the reformation, (one in the Orkneys excepted.) 
In 1123 its foundation was laid. In 1579 the principle 
of the university, and the protestant clergy in the 
neighbourhood, having prevailed on the magistrates to 
demolish this vast monument of the piety of their fore- 
fathers, a great number of workmen were hired and as- 
sembled in solemn form to proceed to the impious work, 
when the members of the trades and incorporations 
of the city flew to arms, took possession of the build- 



118 thorburn's journal. 

ing, and threatened with instant death the first individual 
who should attempt to violate it. The magistrates, to 
preserve the peace of the city, were under the necessity 
of engaging to preserve the cathedral. 

The extensive burial-ground which surrounds the 
cathedral, is almost completely floored over with tomb 
stones, which lie Hat upon the graves; and such is their 
closeness, that scarcely a slip of earth six inches in 
breadth can any where be seen. Close and compact 
as this pavement appears, it has not always been able 
to prevent resurrections, as would appear from a legend 
long current in Glasgow. Upwards of a hundred years 
ago, a citizen one morning threw the whole town into 
a state of inexpressible horror and consternation, by 
giving out that in passing at midnight through the kirk- 
yard, he saw a neighbour of his own, lately buried, rise 
out of his grave and dance a jig with the devil, who 
played the air called "whistle o'er the lave o't" upon 
the bagpipe. The civic dignitaries and ministers were so 
Sincerely scandalized at this intelligence, that they sent 
the town-drummer through the streets next morning to 
forbid any one to whistle, sing, or play the infernal tunc 
in question. 

Glasgow is the great emporium of the commerce and 
manufactures of Scotland. All around the city is 
planted cotton, iron and paper mills, coal-pits, and 
whatever else is attendant on the grand system of com- 
merce. The country may be said to be fairly mill-rid- 
den, subjugated, lamed, and touzled by the demon of 
machinery. Steam, like a night-hag, kicks and spurs 
the sides of oppressed nature, and smoke rises on every 
hand, as if to express the unhappy old dames vexation 
and fatigue. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Sterling Anecdote of a Treasurer, and of a Primitive 
Martyr — a Flying Abbot — Battle of Bannockburn — 
Murder of King James 111. 

Sterlingshire is one of the most beautiful, and 
not the least celebrated of all the Scottish counties. — 
It is situated upon the isthmus between the friths of 
Forth and Clyde. The town of Sterling has long been 
celebrated for its schools. One of the most remarkable 
features in the town of Sterling is the number of its 
charitable institutions. Three of them are perpetual 
endowments, and afford abundant provision for the 
comfort of a considerable number of poor people. It 
is supposed that every twelfth person in Sterling' re- 
ceives charity, and a late writer has likened the town 
to a vast alms-house. Notwithstanding this circum- 
stance, Sterling contains a great number of substantial 
and prosperous merchants. There was in old times a 
sort of old-fashioned burghcrism about the better sorts 
of the inhabitants of Sterling which has long since 
passed away, along with the primitive custom of im- 
plementing bargains by the wetting of thumbs, and 
such other simple practices. In illustration of this, I 
require only to relate an authentic anecdote of one of 
the city treasurers during the last century, whose mode 



120 

of keeping his accounts was one of the most antedilu- 
vian perhaps ever known in the modern world. This 
venerable citizen hung up an old boot on each side of 
his fire-place; into one of them he put all the money 
which he received, and into the other the receipts or 
vouchers for the money which he paid away ; and he 
thus balanced his accounts at the end of the year by 
emptying his boots, and comparing the money left in 
the one, with the documents deposited in the other. 

There is a remarkable fact connected with the his- 
tory of Sterling, said to be occasioned by the following 
circumstance. An early protestant martyr having been 
stoned out of the town, and left to die by the way-side, 
was attacked by a butcher's wife in his dying moments, 
who robbed him of his clothes. This St. Stephen of Ster- 
ling vented with his dying breath a curse on the craft 
to which her husband belonged, and on all of the craft 
who should presume to do business in Sterling for ever 
after. From that time the butchers of Sterling have 
never done well. There arc now actually no butchers 
in the town, and the market is supplied by men who 
live in the villages around. 

About the year 1503 an Italian came to Scotland, and 
gave out to James IV. that he would fly from the bat- 
tlements of Sterling Castle. He fell, of course, and 
broke (happily) — not his neck, but his thigh-bone. — 
The way in which he accounted for his want of success 
is highly curious; " The wings," he said, " were partly 
composed of the feathers of dunghill fowls, and were 
by sympathy attracted to their native dunghill — where- 
as had they consisted entirely of eagles' feathers, they 
would for the same reason have been attracted towards 
the heavens. This man was an abbot. 



thorburn's journal. 121 

Bannockburn is a thriving village in Sterlingshire ; 
it is chiefly supported by extensive manufactories of 
carpets and tarlan. 

It was near this village that the most important bat- 
tle ever fought between the English and Scottish na- 
tions was decided, on the 24th July, 1314. Bruce's 
forces were stationed in three divisions, along the front 
of an eminence called the Gillis-hill. Close by the way- 
side is a lage stone having a hole in the top, into which 
the Scottish king inserted his standard. The English 
army advanced from the heights on the east, and crossed 
a small brook called the Bannock. Before joining in 
the conflict, Bruce had taken care to render their ad- 
vance by no means safe. The Scottish army were de- 
ficient in cavalry — the English had abundance. Bruce 
had a great number of iron cramps made with three 
prongs, so constructed, that when they lay on the 
ground, one of the points stood up. In the night he 
dug a line of trenches, long and deep. The cramps 
were scattered in the bottom of the trenches, then 
covered with branches of trees, sod and turf. He next 
stationed a body of his choicest troops near by the 
trenches. The English commenced the action with a 
shower of arrows, and a tremendous charge of cavalry. 
Next moment men and horses were floundering in 
the ditch by thousands. The troops stationed for the 
purpose, fell on with their broad-swords, and in a few 
minutes there was scarcely a trooper left to tell the 
tale. Such of the horses as scrambled from the pits, 
ran roaring with the pain of the pikes in their feet. — 
They broke through the ranks of their own infantry, 
and threw them in disorder. The Scots fell on before 
they could rally, and an awful slaughter ensued. The 
English, however, being vastly superior in numbers, 

11 



122 thorburn's journal. 

continued the contest, which was still doubtful, when a 
company of old men, women and children, suttlers and 
wagon drivers, who had been left on the back of a hill 
to take care of the baggage, anxious to see how matters 
were going on, appeared on the top of the hill with 
flags, bagpipes, and shouting. The English, supposing 
this to be a reinforcement, at once, gave way, when the 
Scotch obtained a complete victory. 

The English left 30,000 men dead on the field, be- 
sides 700 knights. The Scottish army was enriched 
by the spoils of the English camp, and by the ransom 
of their prisoners, and at the same time completely es- 
tablishing the independence of their country. 

About a mile from the field of Bannockburn, was 
fought, in 1488, the battle which occasioned the death 
of King James III. The barons of Scotland being dis- 
satisfied with the administration of their monarch, rose 
in rebellion against him. A battle was fought, in which the 
king's party was defeated. Before the fate of the day had 
been decided, his majesty (who was never very dis- 
tinguished for courage) lied from the field. His flight 
was solitary. On attempting to cross the Bannockburn, 
about a mile from the battle ground, his horse started at 
the sight of a pitcher with which a woman was lifting 
up water ; the king was thrown from his charger, and 
fell upon the ground in a state of insensibility. This 
happened within a few yards of a mill. The miller and 
his wife carried the unfortunate horseman into their 
house, and though ignorant of his station, treated him 
with great humanity. When he had somewhat recover- 

,he called for a priest, to whom as a dying man he 
might make confession. Being asked who he was, he 
replied, "I was your king this morning." Some of 
the malcontents, who had left the battle in pursuit of 



thorburn's journal. 123 

him, now came up ; and as they were about to pass, 
the miller's wife came out, wringing her hands and 
calling for a confessor to the king. "lam a priest," 
said one of the pursuers ; " lead me to him." Being 
introduced, he found the unfortunate monarch lying in 
the corner of the mill, covered with a coarse cloth ; 
and approaching on his knees, under pretence of reve- 
rence, inquired if his grace thought he could recover if 
he had surgical help. James replied in the affirma- 
tive, when the ruffian, pulling out a dagger, plunged it 
in his heart. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Linlithgow — Palace, Church, and Apparition — Bat- 
tle of Flodden Field — Assassination of the Regent 
Murray. 

Linlithgow, is one of the most respectable among all 
the ancient boroughs of Scotland ; its charter dates from 
the reign of David I., early in the twelfth century. The 
prime object of attention, is undoubtedly the palace, 
where the kings and queens of Scotland long held their 
courts. It was here that Mary Queen of Scots was 
born. This palace was generally used as a jointure 
house for the Queens of Scotland. It is said that Mary 
of Guise, consort of James V. and mother of Mary, on 
being first brought to it, declared it a much more 
splendid house than any of the royal palaces of 
France. 

Next to the palace, as an object of cariosity, is the 
church. This venerable and impressive structure may 
be regarded as one of the finest and most entire speci- 
mens of Gothic architecture in Scotland. 

The battle of Flodden Hill was perhaps the most 
disastrous that ever Scotland saw. And it was in this 
church, that James IV. and his courtiers were surprised 
by an apparition, forewarning him against that mad ex- 



thorburn's journal. 126 

pedition. The following account of this strange occur- 
rence is given by Lindsay of Pitscottie, who probably 
received it from eye-witnesses. It is remarkable for 
picturesque simplicity.— 44 The king," says he, " came 
to Linlithgow, where he happened to be for the time at 
the council, very sad and dolorous, making his devotion 
to God, to send him good chance and fortune in his un- 
dertaking. In the mean time, there came a man, clad 
in a blue gown, in at the kirk door, and had belted about 
him a roll of linen cloth, a pair of brotikins (buskins) 
upon his feet to the great of his legs, with all other 
hose and cloth to conform thereto ; but he had nothing 
on his head, but long red yellow hair behind and on 
his cheeks which was down to his shoulders ; but his 
forehead was bald and bare. He seemed to be a man 
of two-and-fifty years, with a great pike-staff in his 
hand ; and came first forward among the lords, calling 
for the king, saying, he desired to speak with him. 
While at the last he came to where the king was sit- 
ting in the desk at his prayers. He made no reverence 
nor salutation to the king, but leaned down on the desk 
before him, and spoke in this manner :— " Sir king, my 
mother has sent me to you, desiring you not to pass at 
this time, where you are purposed ; for if you doest, thou 
wilt not fare well in thy journey. Further, she bade 
thee mell with no woman, nor use their counsel ; for if 
thou do, thou wilt be confounded, and brought to shame." 
By the time the man had spoken these words, the 
evening song was near done. The king paused on 
these words, studying to give him an answer. But, in 
the mean time, before the king's eyes, and in the pre- 
sence of all the lords that were about him, this man 
vanished away, and could no where be apprehended ; 
but vanished, as if he had been a blink of the sun, or a 
11* 



126 thorburn's journal. 

whip of the whirlwind. I heard, (says the same writer,) 
Sir David Lindsay the herald, and John Ingils the mar- 
shal, say, they were standing beside the king, and 
thought to have laid hands on him, but he vanished 
away betwixt them, and was no more seen. It has 
been supposed, that this was a stratagem of the queen, 
in conjunction with the household priest (for in those 
days of ignorance, the priests wrought many miracles) 
to deter the king from his wild enterprise. That part 
of the speech, where he give the kiug so broad a hint 
about incontinence, seems to imply, that the queen was 
at the root of the matter. 

Omens, also, are said to have occurred calculated to 
impress the superstitious public with fearful anticipa- 
tions of the fate of the campaign. Voices as of a 
herald were heard at midnight at the cross of Edin- 
burgh, summoning the king and his nobles by name 
to appear within sixty days at the bar of Pluto. Mar- 
garet, his queen, also used every plan and influence to 
detain him, but all to no purpose. When at length he 
set out for Flodden, she retired to her room and wept 
many days, anticipating, as the event confirmed, that 
she would never see him more. He died, on the field 
of battle, and was buried in England ; so she never 
even saw his corpse. There lay slain on the field the 
king, thirty of the nobles, fifty chiefs, knights, and 
men of eminence, besides ten thousand men. 

In Linlithgow, too, you are shown the house from 
which Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh shot the Regent 
Murray, in 1570. Hamilton belonged to what was call- 
ed the king's party, and had been taken prisoner by 
Murray at the battle of Langside. The regent grant- 
ed mercy to himself, but confiscated his estate, accord- 
ing to the custom of the times, and bestowed it on one 



127 

of his favorites. This man seized the house, and turn- 
ed his wife out of doors naked, in a cold night, into 
the open fields, where, before the next morning, she 
became furiously mad. Hamilton was absent. When 
he returned home and found his wife a maniac, and his 
house in the possession of another, it so inflamed his 
rage, that he swore nothing would extinguish the 
fire but the heart's blood of the regent; thus giving 
up his whole soul to revenge, he followed him from 
place to place, watching an opportunity to strike the 
bl ow : when hearing that the regent was to pass through 
Linlithgow on his way to Edinburgh, he took his stand 
at a window, waiting his approach. Murray had got a 
hint of his danger, and resolved to ride quickly through 
the city ; but just as he came opposite the fatal spot, a 
pressure in the crowd for a moment impeded his course, 
when the assassin found time to take so sure an aim, 
that he shot the regent with a single bullet. The ball 
passed through his body and killed the horse of a gen- 
tleman who rode on the other side. Hamilton mount- 
ed a fleet horse, which stood ready in a back passage, 
and rode off. 

He was pursued in his flight by a few of the regent's 
friends. After both spur and lash had failed him in 
urging the speed of his horse, and being hard beset, he 
plunged his dagger into the flank of the animal, and by 
that means succeeded in leaping a broad marsh, which 
intercepted his pursuers. He made straight for the 
house of a friend, where he found shelter for some 
time. After a short stay he left Scotland, and served 
in France, under the patronage of the family of Guise. 
It is recorded that an attempt was made to engage him 
to assassinate Gaspar de Coligny, the famous admiral 
of France, and buckler of the Huguenot cause. But 



128 thorburn's journal. 

they mistook their man ; he was no mercenary trader 
in blood, and rejected the offer with contempt and in- 
dignation. He had no authority, he said, from Scot- 
land, to commit murder in France ; he had avenged his 
own just quarrel, but he would neither for price nor 
prayer, avenge that of another man. Some add that 
he challenged the bearer on the spot. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Dalkeith — Palace, Church, School, and Lord Melville 
— Epitaph on Margaret Scott — Story of Margaret 
Dickson. 

Dalkeith, next to Edinburgh and Leith, is the most 
considerable town in Mid-Lothian. The principal street 
is broad and spacious, containing a great number of 
elegant houses. One of the greatest markets in Scot- 
land for oat-meal, is held here every Monday ; and on 
Thursday there is one chiefly for grain. Here is situ- 
ated the seat of the Duke of Buccleugh ; it is a large, 
but not very elegant modern structure, and is surround- 
ed by a beautiful and extensive park. The interior is 
fitted up in a style of the utmost splendour, containing 
many fine pictures, a conservatory of birds, and other 
objects well worthy the attention of strangers. 

The town contains no buildings of any importance 
except the church, which was originally the chapel of 
the castle, nearly five hundred years ago. It is a Gothic 
building of very ordinary workmanship. The east end 
contains the burying vault of the Buccleugh family. 
Here lies buried Mary Scott, (known in popular song 
by the appellation of The Flower of Yarrow.) It is 
said she was a woman of great beauty, with skin so 



130 thorburn's journal. 

transparent that the blood could be seen circulating 
through her veins. 

The High-school in Dalkeith has long been famed 
for its superior teachers. The present incumbent, Mr. 
Steel, is a profound scholar, and a gentleman in every 
sense of the word. This school ha3 had the honour of 
educating some men of great distinction in the po- 
litical as well as the literary world — in particular, the 
late Lord Melville. It is still remembered to the ho- 
nour of that great man, that he kept up, throughout the . 
whole course of his splendid career, a familiar ac- 
quaintance or correspondence with all his early school- 
fellows, however inferior to himself in point of rank 
and fortune, if otherwise meritorious. 

The parish contains about 5000 inhabitants, a gaol, 
and seven places of worship. The inhabitants are a 
set of intelligent, social and comfortable living bodies, 
great sticklers about religion and politics, much given 
to whiggery, but always abounding in hospitality, 
charity, and brotherly love. This being my native 
place, I speak from experience. From my earliest re- 
collections, they were ever opposed to the union of the 
two countries, and until of late they cherished a most 
genuine dislike to Englishmen. It was customary for 
a troop of English horse dragoons to lie quartered in 
this town. Frequent quarrels took place between them 
and the towns-folk. In several instances the whole 
town, men and women, rose and drove the soldiers away 
to seek refuge in another city ; and so famous had they 
become in these rencounters, that to threaten to give a 
person a nivefxA (handful) of Dalkeith meal, was un- 
derstood as a most effectual knock-down argument. 

I remember to have seen, in my school-boy rambles 
through the church-yard, the following epitaph : 



thorburn's journal. 131 

On 

Margaret Scott, 
Who died 9th February, 1738, aged 125 years. 
Stop, passenger, until my life you've read, 
The living may get knowledge by the dead : 
Five times five years I liv'd a virgin life, 
Ten times five years I was a virtuous wife, 
Ten times five years I liv'd a widow chaste, 
Now tired of this mortal world I rest. 
I from my cradle to my grave have seen 
Eight mighty kings of Scotland, and a queen; 
Four times five years the common wealth I saw, 
Ten times the subjects rose against the law ; 
Twice did I see old prelacy pull'd down, 
And twice the cloak was humbled by the gown. 
An end of Steuart's race I saw no more ; 
I saw my country* sold for English ore, — 
Such desolations in my time have been, 
I have an end of all perfection seen. 

In my late visit to my native place I looked among 
the tombstones for this, but it could not be found — time 
and change no doubt has been its ruin. The epitaph is 
still preserved, however, in a collection of about one 
thousand sepulchral curiosities, taken from monuments 
and gravestones — printed in 1823. 

Musselburgh is the next town of note in Mid-Lothian. 
It derives its name from a large bank of muscles on the 
sea shore in its neighbourhood. Here the Romans 
built a fort and a town in the twelfth century. This 
harbour was the most important that was held by these 



* Scotland, refering to the Union. 



132 thorburn's journal. 

invaders on the south side of the Forth, and was the 
termination of one of their roads, the traces of which 
are still to be seen. 

In the year 1728 a sermon was preached in the old 
church at Musselburgh, upon an occasion so memora- 
ble that it cannot fail to interest the majority of readers. 
A woman by the name of Margaret Dickson, the wife 
of a mariner who had been at sea above a twelve-month, 
having a child in the mean time, she, to hide her shame, 
took its life. For this crime she was tried, condemned, 
and duly (as was thought) executed in Edinburgh. — 
When the dreadful ceremony was over, poor Maggy's 
friends put her body into a chest, and drove it away. 
On the road for Musselburgh, about two miles from 
town, they stopped at a tavern where they remained 
about half an hour at dinner. On coming out of the 
house, how much were they surprised to see their 
friend sitting up in the chest, having been restored to 
life, it was supposed, by the motion of the cart. They 
took her home that night to Musselburgh, where she 
soon entirely recovered. As she had suffered the pe- 
nalty of the law, no one dared to molest her. On the 
succeeding Sunday, she was able to attend public wor- 
ship, when the minister delivered a discourse applicable 
to her case. After some time her husband returned, 
when they were again married, she having been dead 
in law. She ever after went by the title of half-hangit 
Maggie. This is a simple tale of truth. 



CHAPTER XX. 

A Parting Scene — the Grave of my Mother — the World 
of Spirits. 

On a late visit to my native village, after an original 
absence of forty years, when the day of separation 
again drew near, I accepted an invitation to a farewell 
dinner. It was on the last day of the year 1833. The 
company was select, consisting of twenty-five. The 
majority of them had been my school-fellows//^ years 
ago. The exit of the old, and commencement of the 
new year, is a time of high festivity all over Scotland. 
It begins on the last, and continues for the five or six 
first days of the new year. They are called, by way of 
distinction, the daft days. By-the-by, it is a curious 
trait in the character of the Romish church ; when we 
look back through the mists of fourteen centuries, we 
will find that most of those days now called crazy (daft) 
were originally introduced by the priests under the 
name of holy days. Hence, every idle or rejoicing day 
is termed holy, though they are the most wicked days 
of all the year. The 4th of July is called a holy day, 
and yet perhaps one million of people get drunk that 
day, that never get drunk till it comes round again. In 
all the popish countries, near the tenth of their lime is 
12 



134 

spent in hearing mass in the morning, and frolicking in 
the afternoon. The carnival at Venice may be called 
a week of wicked holy days. In Edinburgh, New-Year's 
day is a real crazy (daft) day. I remember one of the 
daft tricks they used to play on that day fifty years ago, 
which was for the men to kiss every woman that they 
met in the street, no matter whether gentle or simple — 
if they appeared in public they must pay the penalty. 
There was no tyranny in this however ; the thing was 
very easily got over — the ladies who wished to be kissed 
walked out, and those who would rather be excused 
staid at home. I was in Edinburgh last daft-day week, 
but I find this custom is gone with the days before the 
flood. But to return to my school-fellows at dinner. 
The room where we sat was within one hundred yards 
of the identical school-house into which we had so 
often trudged, with lingering step and rueful face, and 
spirits sunk down to our heels ; and from whence, when 
dismissed, we used to bound in all the noise of frantic 
mirth. There it stood, with the same low rough stone 
walls, short and narrow windows, leaden sashes and 
small triangular panes of glass, and its venerable roof 
covered with thatch. This house, I think, must have 
been built before the year one, (viz. 1701,) — indeed I 
could not perceive on it the march of time. I could 
not see that the house looked a whit older than it did 
fifty years* ago. It stands in what they call a close in 
Scotch, or alley. Neither could I perceive that any of 
the buildings adjoining had either been pulled down or al- 
tered ; and herein lies the essense of pleasure- — for when 



* At this time no other books were then used in this school, 
but the shorter Catechism, Spelling Book, and Bible. 



thorburn's journal. 135 

you revisit the place of your birth after along absence, a 
new generation stares at you with a look of something 
like alarm. You are a stranger at your own door. You 
look round ; there stands the same venerable church 
and school-house, and may be some ancient oak, under 
whose limbs, in youth, you whiled away the long and 
sultry summer day. You hail them as friends. You talk 
to yourself and the moss ; and the ivy on their darken- 
ed walls seems to respond to your whisper. This ex- 
quisite feeling is only enjoyed by him whose birth- 
place is a village, a small deserted village, where five 
hundred souls live as one family, where each one knows 
and is known — for in large cities, man is a stranger 
among strangers. I stood on my village green. I knew 
no body, but every body knew me. I sat at the table, 
the friends of my youth on each side. I tried to trace 
in their healthy sun-burned faces some lines of the 
school-boys' countenance. They were gone, and replaced 
by the wrinkles of time — the flowing locks were shorn, 
and on their bald foreheads sat the snows of age. 

We played over again the games, the frolics, and 
pranks of our school-boy days. It was altogether a feast 
of reason and a flow of soul : no debauch, for though 
the whisky punch stood on the table, it was tasted in 
moderation. "We parted with auld lang syne, and here 
it was acted up to nature. 

We twa had played aboot the braes, when simmer days 

were fine, 
But, we had wandered mony a weary fit, since auld 

lang syne ; 
And, we twa had paddled in the burn, from morning 

time, till nine, 
But seas between us bre'd, had roared, since auld lang 

syne. 



136 thorburn's journal. 

Most of those boys had rose from poverty to wealtii 
and respectability by their own exertions. I observed 
they were chiefly among those that we called wicked 
chaps at school. 

In the house of my father, I enjoyed all that heart 
could wish in like circumstances. The house, stands 
on the same spot, though somewhat enlarged. There 
sat my worthy and venerated father, in the same room 
I last parted with him ; his faculties as bright, and his 
health better than it was fifty years ago. Though- 
blind with age, (having seen the frosts of ninety-one 
winters.) he knew my voice before he heard my name. 
There stood the same eight-day clock, which has given 
note of time to the family as long back as my memory 
serves ; there lay the same old family Bible, with the 
book containing the simple but beautiful version of the 
Scottish psalms. Much of the furniture was the same — 
in short, I was at home. I would not have exchanged 
my feelings at this moment, for all the pomp and pa- 
geantry of kings since the world began. 

On a gray, calm, cloudy afternoon, when the days 
were short, and darkness covering the land by 4 o'clock, 
I walked out to visit the grave of my mother for the 
last time. The grave of my mother ! Of all the sounds 
which issue from the tomb, there is not one more solemn, 
nor one which more keenly penetrates the soul than 
this. The grave of my mother ! — though your mother 
may have shut her eyes in death, as you first opened 
your's to see the light of the sun ; though you may have 
spent a half of a century in thoughtlessness and folly ; 
though you have seen perils by land, and perils on the 
great deep ; though you fear not God nor regard man ; 
yet stand by the grave of your mother, (on her dust 



thorburn's journal. 137 

you dare not tread, nature forbids !) and your heart 
will melt like softened wax. 

In a lonely church-yard,* remote from mortals dwell- 
ing on this gloomy winter's day, I stood by the grave 
of my mother. Her image I could not recall, (as she 
left this world, before I knew my right hand from my 
left.) But, as I stooped over the sod, which covered 
that breast from whence I drew the first nourishment 
of life, I wondered with myself why I should still weep, 
though that sod has been wet with the snow of sixty 
winters — it was nature claiming her own. I was lost ! 
The spot where I stood was consecrated ground, and 



* In this solitary place of sculls is the burial-ground for the 
parish of Newbottle. Here a monastery was founded some time 
in the twelfth century, by King David I., for a community of Cis- 
tercian monks. These monks were the first persons that discover- 
ed coal in Scotland, and used it as a fuel. The monastery or 
abbey is still in excellent repair, being the residence of the Mar- 
quis of Lothian. But the place is truly a deserted village. In 
my young days it was a place of considerable note, being chiefly 
occupied by weavers and market gardeners ; now it looks as soli- 
tary as the ruins of Babylon itself — no sound to be heard, save 
the grinding of a lonely mill, and the chattering of the swallow 
and sparrow on the house-top. Fifty years ago it contained a 
row of houses about one fourth of a mile in length ; now I did 
not observe more than a dozen of chimnies, from whence issued 
smoke. In this lone land of solemn desolation is the humble grave 
of my mother. 

Returning from this narrow house of mourning, I spied the sex- 
ton opening an old grave. He was digging through whole rows 
of generations, the place having been a cemetery for probably six 
hundred years. I stood about ten minutes in conversation, and 
counted seven sculls thrown up from the bowels of the earth. 
When the dead, both small and great, shall spring from these 
tombs, how awful will be the sight ! The very dust we tread on 
once lived. 

12* 



138 thokburn's journal. 

my spirit was communing with hers, perhaps it was 
hovering around 

Friends departed, are angels sent from heaven. Arc 
they not all ministering spirits? Then why may not a 
departed mother be sent to watch over her orphan child. 
In my childish days I used to devour a nursery story 
of a mother who died and left seven young children, 
and as the story went, her ghost was seen every night 
to enter the room, and straighten the bed clothes over 
her sleeping babes. We have all felt the influence of 
these nursery tales ; this one made a strong impression 
on my mind. Oft when put to bed in my dark and soli- 
tary room, have I wished most fervently that my mo- 
ther would appear in her white robes, that I might see 
her face — fear entered not into this feeling. I knew if 
she came it would be in love, and my soul longed to 
behold her countenance. I think this childish fancy 
has had a salutary influence on my after life. I remem- 
ber, as I grew in years, (far up, I am not yet,) if my 
way at night lay through a church-yard, by a ghostly 
castle or on haunted ground, I had no fear. I thought 
if a ghost came, it would be my mother, and I rather 
wished for, than dreaded the sight. Since then I have 
had no trouble about the inhabitants of the invisible 
world. 

In 1798, when death reigned triumphant through our 
city, have I watched all night alone in a solitary room, 
in a deserted house, and almost deserted street, hearing 
nothing, save the heavy groans, the short breath, and 
the death rattle of a fellow-mortal just entering the 
confines of eternity. I doubted not. but spirits were in 
attendance there, but hoped and prayed they were 
ministering spirits, ready to convey a ransomed soul 
to worlds of bliss. The devil might also be there. 



THORBltRN's JOURNAL* 139 

eagerly watching for his prey. But I knew that the eye 
of Omnipotence was there ; he has taken the prey 
from the mighty, and all the devils in hell dare not 
move a finger without his permission. 

Some will smile at this world of spirits of whom I 
speak-r-say it is all a flight of fancy, or the wandering 
of a distempered brain. It is very probable it may be 
so, for I do think our brains are all more or less dis- 
tempered. We think we are wise, (a symptom of our 
distemper,) though we are born as ignorant as a set of 
wild young jackass colts. But if we are to believe no- 
thing, except we can demonstrate the truth of its ex- 
istence by the sense of sight or touch, we might almost 
doubt our own existence. Were it not for the power 
of the microscope, thousands of stars would blaze un- 
seen, and the man who would assert that millions of 
live animals sport in every spoonful of spring water we 
swallow, would be placed in the madhouse. When 
therefore we know that earth, air, and sea, are full of 
living beings inferior to us in power, and unseen to our 
natural sight, why then should it be thought a thing 
incredible to us, that God has made beings of power 
and intelligence far superior to us, though to our eyes 
unseen ? 



This doctrine of invisible messengers, to say the 
least of it, is a very pleasing revery, the belief of which 
I would not exchange for a world. To think they are 
hovering round us in our path, watching our pillow by 
night, and whispering on our senses while we sleep, is 
a consolation most devoutly to be thankful for. What a 
poor cold milk-and-water system that doctrine of 
infidelity must be, belie vin g nothing but what it can com- 
prehend, while at the same time we cannot comprehend 
the machinery of our own frame. 



140 thorburn's journal. 

Children begin to reason before they are four years 
old; and at that age they know nothing of the world's 
deceptions, but explicitly believe whatever their parents 
tell them. Were parents and nurses therefore, instead 
of filling their minds with frightful stories about ghosts 
and powerful wicked devils, to inform them that God 
who made the devils is stronger than they; that they can- 
not hurt any one without his permission ; and that he 
also made good angels, who are more powerful than the 
devils, and that he sends them to guard good children 
when they sleep and when they wake, and if fire or 
floods surround them in the night, his angels will wake 
them up and deliver them — this would save them from 
that slavish fear, which makes them afraid to walk in 
the dark, and to tremble at their own shadow. It would 
also give them a more pleasing impression of the cha- 
racter of their Maker, whose name is Love, and inspire 
them with courage as they grew up, to go forward in 
the way of duty, encountering the troubles and dangers 
of life with confidence, knowing that without divine 
permission, no evil can befall them, or plague come near 
their dwelling. 



CHAPTER XXL 

Fisherrow — Men, Manners, and Women there — St. 
Nonan's Church — Largo — Birth-place and Sketch of 
Alexander Selkirk, alias Robinson Crusoe. 

Fisherrow is connected with Musselburgh by three 
or more bridges. The chief class of the population con- 
sists of fishermen. The numerous female relations of 
these men form a peculiar people, and are so remark- 
able in every respect, that they must not be passed over 
without notice. They are called fish wives ; their em- 
ployment is the transportation of fish from the harbour 
of their village to Edinburgh, a distance of six miles. 
They usually carry loads of from 1 to 200 weight in 
willow baskets upon their backs, evincing thereby a 
degree of masculine strength, which is not unaccom- 
panied by manners equally masculine. There is in 
Fisherrow, indeed, a complete reversal of the duties 
of the sexes — the husband being often detained at 
home by bad weather, and employing himself as nurse ; 
while the wife is endeavouring at Edinburgh, to win 
the means of maintaining the family. A woman of 
Fisherrow would have but little cause of boasting, if 
she could not, by this species of industry, gain money 
sufficient to maintain a domestic establishment inde- 



142 thorburn's journal. 

pendent of the exertions, whatever they might be of 
her husband. On hearing of any such effeminate per- 
son being about to be married, it is customary for the 
thorough-paced fish wives to exclaim, in a tone of 
sovereign contempt, "Her ! what wad she do wi' a man, 
that canna win* a man's bread?" 

These singular amazons referred too, dress themselves 
in a style, which, if coarse, must also be not uncostly ; 
they are unable to wear any head dress, except a nap- 
kin, on account of the necessity of supporting their 
back burdens by a broad belt, which crosses the fore- 
head, and has to be slipped over the head every time 
they take off their merchandise. 

They usually wear, however, a voluminous and truly 
Flemish quantity of petticoats, with a jerkin of blue 
cloth, and several fine napkins inclosing the neck and 
bosom. Their numerous petticoats are of different 
qualities and colours ; and it is customary, while two 
or three hang down, to have as many or more bundled 
up over the haunches, so as to give a singularly bulky 
and sturdy appearance to the figure. Thirty years ago 
they wore no shoes nor stockings, but cannot now be 
impeached with that fault. They have strong black 
leather shoes, and generally knit white worsted stockings, 
which appeared to have been put on clean every morn- 
ing. Indeed, I saw no class in Scotland, whose condi- 
tion seemed to have so much improved, (since I left the 
country 40 years ago,) as that of the fisher women. I was 
told that it was mainly owing to the introduction among 
them of Sunday schools. It is rather remarkable, that 
those vain philosophers, who have been writing for 



♦Win, Scotch— earn, English. 



thorburn's journal. 143 

centuries and searching for plans whereby to improve 
the condition of man, thought not of this. The experi- 
ment never yet has failed, (where there lived a com- 
munity who obeyed not God nor feared man ; but who 
lived in filth, rags and drunkenness,) but, as soon as 
you introduce among them the order of the Sabbath, 
and the sober decencies of religion, they are temper- 
ate, clean, clothed, and sitting in their right mind, hear- 
ing his word. Formerly, they spent their week's wages 
in the tavern. This by the way. 

The ancient little fishing village of St. Nonans, in 
Fifeshire, is worthy of a visit, on account of its parish 
church, which is a curious little old Gothic edifice, situ- 
ated so near to the sea, as to be occasionally wet by its 
foam, until lately when it underwent a thorough repair. 
It exhibited a complete suit of church furniture, which, 
neither in the pulpit, nor in the galleries, nor in the 
ground pews, had experienced for nearly two hundred 
years the least repair, or even been once touched by 
the brush of the painter. A small old-fashioned model 
of a ship, full rigged, hung from the roof, like a chan- 
delier, as an appropriate emblem of the generally mari- 
time character of the parishoners. In fo-mer times/the 
bell which rang the people of St. Nonans to public 
worship hung upon a tree in the church-yard, and was 
removed every year during the herring fishing season, 
because the fishermen had a superstitious notion that 
the fish were scared away from the coast by its noise. 

Largo is an extensive fishing village in Fifeshire, and 
is remarkable as the birth-place of Alexander Selkirk, 
the prototype of Robinson Crusoe. The real history 
of this man has been already often printed, but the fol- 
lowing additional memorabilia respecting him, picked 
up at a late visit to the place, will perhaps be new to 
most readers. 



144 thorburn's journal. 

Alexander Selkirk was bom in the year 1676, (one 
century prior to the American declaration of indepen- 
dence.) His father, like almost all the men of the vil- 
lage, was a fisherman, and had another son who carried 
on the line of his family. There are many people of 
this rare name in the village, but this particular family 
has now ended in a daughter, who being a married 
woman, has lost the name. Alexander is remembered 
to have been a youth of a high spirit, and uncontrolable 
temper — to which, in all probability, we are to attribute 
the circumstance of his being left on the island of Juan 
Fernandez. To a trivial family quarrel, resulting from 
this bad quality on his part, the world is indebted for 
the admirable fiction which, for a century past, has 
charmed the romantic imaginations of all its youth. 

The following is the accredited family narrative of 
that event. Alexander came home one evening, and 
feeling thirsty, raised a pipkin of water to his mouth 
in order to take a drink; it turned out to be salt water, 
and he immediately replaced the vessel on the ground 
with an exclamation of disgust. This excited the hu- 
mour of his brother, who was sitting by the fire, and 
with whom he had not lately been on good terms. The 
laugh and the jibe were melon Alexander's part with a 
blow. Both brothers immediately closed in a struggle, 
in which Alexander had the advantage. Their father 
attempted to interpose, but the offended youth was not 
to be prevented by. even parental authority from taking 
his revenge. A general family combat now took place, 
some siding with the one brother, and some with the 
other ; and peace was not restored till the whole town, 
alarmed by the noise, was gathered in scandalized 
wonderment to the spot. Matters such as this were then 
deemed fit for the attention of the kirk-session. Alex- 



145 

ander Selkirk, as the prime cause of the quarrel, was 
summoned before that venerable body of old womun, 
and commanded to expiate his offence by standing a 
certain number of Sundays in the church as a penitent, 
to be rebuked by the clergyman.* He at first utterly 
refused to submit to so degrading an exhibition of his 
person, but the entreaties of his friends, and the fear 
of excommunication, at length prevailed over his n >ble 
nature. He submitted to the mortifying censures of the 
church in all their contemptible details. No sooner, 
however, had the term of his punishment expired, thr.n, 
overwhelmed with shame and disgust, he left his native 
town, and sought on the broad ocean the sea-room 
which had been denied to his restless spirit at home. 
After an absence of several years, during which he had 
endured the solitude of Juan Fernandez, he returned 
to his native town. He brought with him the gun, 
sea-chest, and cup, which he had used on the uninhabit- 
ed island. He spent nine months in the bosom of his 
family — then went away on another voyage, and was 
never more heard of. 

The house in which this remarkable person was born 
still exists. It is an ordinary cottage of one story and a 
garret ; it has never been out of the possession of his 
family since his time. The present occupant is his 
great-grandniece, Catherine Selkirk, or Gillies, who 
inherited it from her father, the late John Selkirk, who 



* In my youth, I have seen a young man and woman strnd up 
before a whole congregation, and receive a rebuket for bundling, 
three months before marriage. 

t A custom, or relic, of popery. 

13 



116 thorburn's journal. 

was grandson to the brother, with whom Alexander had 
the quarrel, and died so late as October 1825, at the 
age of 74. Mrs. Gillies, who has very properly called 
one of her children after her celebrated kinsman, to 
prevent, as she says, the name from going out of the 
family, is very willing to show the chest and cup to 
strangers applying for a sight of them. The chest is 
a very strong one, of the ordinary size, but composed 
of peculiarly fine wood, jointed in a remarkably com- 
plicated manner, and convex at top. The cup is formed 
out of a cocoanut, the small segment cut from the 
mouth supplying a foot ; it was recently mounted with 
silver, at the expense of the late Mr. A. Constable, the 
celebrated bookseller in Edinburgh. The gun,, with 
which the adventurer killed his game, and which is 
said to be seven feet long, has been alienated from the 
family, and is now in possession of Major Lumsdale. 



• 



CHAPTER XXIL 

A Chapter of Incidents out of place — Monument of Lady 
Nightingale — my Trunk lost and recovered — Ser- 
vants in London — a Noble Party — the King and 
Scotch Cook. 

In the chapel of St. John and St. Michael, (West- 
minster Abbey,) is the monument of Lady Nightingale. 
It was executed by Roubiliac, and is remarkable for the 
beauty of its workmanship. A fine figure of death is 
coming out of a tomb ready to hurl his dart. The hus- 
band is represented as standing between the monster 
and his beautiful wife, endeavouring to ward off' the 
blow. Itisvain ! This old experienced marksman never 
missed — neverwas bribed by worth, youth, or beauty ; 
the dart strikes the vital spot — she sinks — she dies ! It 
is a very interesting sight. 

On the 1st of March, at 2 P. M., I left Liverpool on 
the Manchester rail-road, on my way to London, where 
I intended to ship. When we pay for our seat in the 
car, we receive a ticket, bearing the number of the 
seat we are to occupy. The car contains six seats in 
the form of an arm chair, and are numbered. In my 
front sat a respectable looking gentleman, whom, from 
his dress, I presumed belonged to the society of 
Friends. We soon entered into conversation. Our jour- 



148 thorburn's journal. 

ney from Liverpool to Manchester, a distance of 30 
miles, occupied one hour and thirty minutes. When 
the car stopped, we were still in earnest conversation. 
As we stepped out, my friend observed — " friend Grant, 
as thou art a stranger in these parts, if thee will put 
thyself under my direction, and walk along to my dwell- 
ing, on the way we pass the office of the stage which 
goes on for London at 8 o'clock this evening. We can 
secure thy seat ; then step to my house, partake of a 
cup of tea, and sit with my famih till half past seven. It 
will be more agreeable, than to sit three hours in a ho- 
tel among strangers." As this kind offer exactly 
agreed with my notions of propriety in these matters, 
I thanked him sincerely, and accompanied him on the 
way. It was now 4 P. M. On arriving at his house 
we partook of an excellent cup of tea, and was engaged 
in a pleasant family fireside conversation. At a quar- 
ter past 7, I drew out my watch, while I was tracing the 
figure, my friend observes, " friend Grant, thee seems 
to carry very little baggage, to have travelled so far." 
I sprung on my feet, says I, "I have lost my trunk ; 
what shall I do?" Says he, " we will call a carriage and 
try." You will observe, it now wanted only 40 minutes 
to the time of starting. We drove to the office of the 
cars — could get no intelligence of the trunk — said when 
the cars stopped they were all placed on the ground ; 
and if passengers left their baggage, it was at the mercy 
of any one who might carry it off, as no goods were re- 
ceived in the office, except at the request of the owner* 
and on his entering his name. Gladly would I now have 
given 50 pr. ct. to have insured my trunk. We then drove 
to different hotels and omnibus offices — finally found 
the trunk among a heap of others at one of the hotels. 
We reached the stage office, saw my trunk secured on 



thorburn's journal. 149 

the top, and took ray scat just two minutes before start- 
ing. In common phrase, I think my falling in with 
this gentleman one of the most fortunate incidents of 
my journey; but for him, I really believe I would not 
have recovered my trunk ; one thing is certain, I would 
not have got it that night, and of course would have 
lost my passage in the stage. My mind was in that 
state of anxiety, 1 was incapable of acting with discre- 
tion or maki:ig a cool inquiry; while he was prompt, 
active, well known and respected ; as I could see, by 
the alacrity and attention paid to his inquiries wherever 
we went. 

When I thought of my stupidity in walking off with 
only my cloak on my arm and umbrella in my hand, 
and leaving my trunk, which I had safely carried through 
a five months journey, and now to lose it on the last 
day of my route ; when I remembered that I had not a 
change of clothing, and that all my books, pictures, 
papers, and curiosities, which I had been gathering 
with so much trouble and care, were in that trunk; I 
say, when I thought of this, (the thought did not drive 
me mad.) it made me feel as 3tupid as any simple fool 
ever fell when left to wander in his own counsels. Mr. 

C is a respectable member of the society of 

Friends, and an extensive manufacturer of crapes in 
Manchester. I care not a cent for the epithet enthusi- 
ast. I firmly believe in the doctrine of a particular 
Providence ; and that I was directed in the way of this 
man as the means of getting my feet out of this scrape. 
Had he been five minutes later in his remark about the 
smallness of my baggage, 1 certainly would have lost 
my passage — would have lost a night and a day, and 
probably my trunk. 

13* 



150 thorburn's journal 

" There is a divinity doth shape our endg : 
Rough hew them as we will." 

[Cowper. 
" As falls a sparrow to the ground, 

Obedient to thy will ; 
By the same law those globes wheel round, 
Each drawing each, yet all still found 
In one eternal system bound 

One order to fulfil." 

[Brougham. 

I arrived in London next day about sun down. It 
is amusing to see the deference paid to dress and ap- 
pearances by the livery servants in London. They 
seem to be more tenacious on this point than most of 
their masters. If you approach the door, except you 
come in a carriage of some sort, no matter how mean, 
you are hardly treated with civility. I went to deliver 
a letter of introduction to a gentleman in Russell Square 
on foot — rang'. The liveryman looked from a door in 
the area of the cellar. " What's wanting ?" says he. 
"Is Mr. W. within?" says I. "He is gone out."— 
11 When he comes in give him this letter and card," 
says I. Next day Mr. W. called at my dwelling, having 
his lady, two children, a young gentleman, and himself 
in an elegant carriage, a coachman before, and this same 
livery servant behind. Being called, I went to the 
carriage. Mr. W. came out, insisted on going in the 
house. I wished him not to leave his family in the 
street. He came in however, conversed ten minutes, 
gave me his address, with an invitation to dine that and 
every other evening at 6 o'clock while I was in Lon- 
don. I always dined with him from that day, when 
my other engagements would admit. But I was much 



thorburn's journal. 151 

amused to see with what pointed attention I was treated 
by this same servant next time I called — as taking off 
my surtout, hanging up my hat, &c, after he had seen 
the polite manner in which his master had answered 
my call. 

On one occasion I dined at Lord B's. There were 
twelve at the table, and six servants in splendid livery 
to wait on them. I put on my best black suit, and 
looked as smooth as a country parson.* I had got a 
few glimpses at high life previously, sol felt some con- 
fidence in myself. The mistress of the feast sat at the 
head of the table. On her right sat a young lady, a 

Miss C n. 1 was placed on her right, while the 

eldest daughter of the family, a girl of seventeen, sat 
on my right hand. So I was placed between the twa. 
When I looked at the 'servants with their powdered 
heads and clothes of scarlet, at the vessels of gold and 
vessels of silver, at the jars of China and platters of 
glass, at the lords and the ladies, at the sirs and the 
counts, at the room, whose seats, sofas, Ottomans and 
foot-stools, far outshone what we have read of Eastern 
luxury and splendour, and whose gas lamps and chan- 
deliers sent forth a blaze more brilliant than their win- 
ter sun, I thought this was rather going ahead of any 
thing of the kind I had yet seen, and was rather afraid 
I might make some blunder. However, I was resolved 
to maintain my confidence, and make myself at home, 
like my worthy countryman, Sir Andrew Wylie, at 
the ball given by the Duchess of Dashingwell in the 
next square to where I am now partaking of London 
hospitality. Miss C n was a sociable and intelli- 

* I came in a carriage on this important business. 



152 thorburn's journal. 

gent girl. We were at home in five minutes. Says I r 
" Miss, I have seen some fine parties at Edinburgh,. 
Glasgow, and Liverpool, but this is rather carrying the 
joke a little farther than any thing I have seen yet ; I 
am afraid I may go wrong. I am something like the 
old woman in Scotland, who went to dine with the 
minister ; so if I can't get on you must help me along." 
She said she would. " But what of the old lady in 
Scotland ?" said she. Says I, " I have heard my father 
relate the story years ago, (it happened in the parish 
where he lives,) and I heard him relate it again last 
week. (She was much surprised to hear he yet lives 
in his 91st year.) "On a certain market day, Marga- 
ret, the wife of a neighboring farmer, in addition to her 
load of hens, geese, and turkeys, brought a small bas- 
ket of eggs as a present for her minister. Having sold 
off her load of sundries, she wends her way to the par- 
sonage. After inquiring how he, the wife, and aw' the 
bairns did, she says, "I hae brought ye twa or three 
collar (fresh) eggs for the good wife, to help her youl 
bannocks" (Christmas cakes.) The eggs were kindly 
received, and being dinner hour, she was invited to 
stop and take her kail. " Na, na" says Margaret, " I 
dinna ken hu to behave at great folks' tables." "Oh, 
never mind," said the minister, "just do as ye see me 
do." Margaret was persuaded, and sat down at the 
table. It so happened that the minister was old and 
well st icken with age, and with all had got a stroke 
of the palsey. In conveying the spoon from the cup 
to the lip, the arm being, unsteady, the.soup was apt to 
spill on the ground ; therefore, to prevent damage be- 
falling his garments, it was his custom to fasten one 
end of the table-cloth with two stout pins to the top of 
his waistcoat, just under the chin. Margaret, who sat on 



thorburn's journal. 153 

the opposite corner of the table watching his motions, 
immediately pins the other end of the cloth to a strong 
homespun shawl, right under her chin. She was at- 
tentive to every move. The minister deposites a quan- 
tity of mustard on the edge of his plate. Margaret, 
not observing this fugal exactly, carries the spoon to 
her mouth. The mustard soon began to operate on 
the olfactory nerve. She had never before seen mus- 
tard. She thought she was bewitched. The girl coming 
in with clean plates opens the door. Margaret makes 
one spring, upsets the girl, plates and all, sweeps the 
table of all its contents : the crash adds speed to her 
flight. The minister being fast to the other corner, was 
compelled to follow as quick as his tottering limbs 
could move. He held on to the railing. The pins slipped. 
Away went Margaret, and never looked back on the par- 
son's door." Miss C n laughed aloud at the con- 
clusion. Some of the company inquired the cause, so, 
by way of explanation, I was compelled to repeat the 
story. 

The conversation turned chiefly on the conceit and 
pride, &c, of the Americans. I observed, that they 
had much to be proud of, such upright statesmen and 
honest politicians as Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, 
Jay, Franklin and others, perhaps no other country 
could boast of. This was assented to ; and with regard 
to ships, none can build, sail, or fight like them. Some 
remarks (from Hall, Trollope and Fiddler's Men and 
Manners) being made about the ladies, I said I firmly 
believed there was not a lady in America, but would 
sooner suffer the pains of martyrdom, than expose her 
person, as their women do at the pantheons, theatre 
and opera boards. These and similar sentiments which 
I .maintained in conversation pleased many, but were 



154 thorburn's journal. 

rather cutting to a few. I observed to them, (by the 
way of soothing,) that the Americans originally sprung 
chiefly from Britain ; therefore, they ought not to be 
jealous, because their sons and daughters had not de- 
generated. 

The conversation took a turn, and was maintained 
for some time on the national character of the Scots, 
their intelligence, industry and enterprise ; their steady 
habits, respect for religion and attachment to the Bible. 
A gentleman, by way of a case in point, related the fol- 
lowing anecdote, which, though not quite original, is 
well worth preserving. 

The King and his Scotch Cook. 

The witty Earl of Rochester, being in company with 
King Charles II., his queen, chaplain, and some minis- 
ters of state, after they had been discoursing on busi- 
ness, the king suddenly exclaims, "Let our thoughts be 
unbended from the cares of state, and give us a gene- 
rous glass of wine — that cheer eth, as the scripture saith, 
God and man." The queen hearing this, modestly said 
she thought there could be no such text in the scrip- 
tures, and that the idea was but little less than blasphemy. 
The king replied he was not prepared to turn to chap- 
ter and verse, but was sure he had met it in his scrip- 
ture reading. The chaplain was appealed to, and he 
was of the same opinion as the queen. Rochester 
suspecting the king to be right, and being no friend to 
the chaplain, slipped out of the room to inquire among 
the servants if any of them were conversant with the 
Bible. They named David, the Scotch cook, who al- 
ways carried a Bible about him ; and David being 
called, recollected both the text, and where to find it. 



THORBURN ? S JOURNAL. 155 

Rochester ordered him to be in waiting, and returned 
to the king. This text was still the topic of conversa- 
tion, and Rochester moved to call in David, who, he 
said, he found was well acquainted with the scriptures. 
David appeared, and being asked the question, pro- 
duced his Bible, and read the text, (Judges ix. 13.) 
The king smiled, the queen asked pardon, and the 
chaplain blushed. Rochester then asked the doctor if 
he could interpret the text now it wa3 produced ? The 
doctor was mute. The earl, therefore, applied to David 
for the exposition. The cook immediately replied, 
" How much wine cheereth many our lordship knows : 
and that it cheereth God, I beg leave to say, that under 
the Old Testament dispensation, there were meat-offer- 
ings and drink-offerings ; the latter consisted of wine, 
which was typical of the blood of the Mediator, which 
by a metaphor was said to cheer God, as he was well 
pleased in the way of salvation he had appointed. 
Whereby his justice was satisfied, his law fulfilled, his 
mercy reigned, his grace triumphed, all his perfec- 
tions harmonized, the sinner was saved, and God in 
Christ glorified." The king was surprised at this, 
evangelical exposition. Rochester applauded, and 
after some severe reflections upon the doctor, very 
gravely moved, that his majesty would be pleased to 
make \ke chaplain his cook, and this cook his chaplain. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A Conversazione — Mr. Irving and the Irvingites — A 
Visit to the Packet — A Street Juggler. 

I was next invited to -make one of a party., or as the 
card sent me specified, a conversazione, to be at the 
place at 10 A. M. The door was attended by two ser- 
vants in proper costume ; to one I gave the card I re- 
ceived, and while he carried it to his master, the other 
was helping off my coat, hat, and securing my umbrella. 
He affixed to them a ticket, and gave me the correspond- 
ing number, to prevent an exchange. I thought in my 
case this precaution was unnecessary, as I stand within 
an inch of five feet, and they were all great men. The 
master appeared, when I was presented in form. 

I thought, on the whole, it was a very pretty and a 
very rational affair. The gentlemen were chiefly literary 
and scientific characters. The ladies, were women of 
taste and refinement ; in fact, it was a real show of natu- 
ral and artificial curiosities. Almost every guest brought 
with him or her some contribution to the evening's 
amusement. Many of the gentlemen had lately been 
in far countries, and had with them the fruits of their 
industry and taste. There were plants, flowers, draw- 
ings, paintings, prints, minerals, shells, petrifactions, 



thorburn's JOURNAL. "5? 

&c. &c. ; but among all the wonders of nature and art 
there displayed, nothing appeared so remarkable in 
my eyes, as the skin which was cast off from a man's 
hand after the manner of a snake. This article wa:. 
produced by a physician, who gave us a well authenti- 
cated account of the circumstances of the case. The 
man was a respectable farmer not far from London, an 1 
was subject to some sort of fever, -which se^ed him 
regularly every five years. On recovering from the 
fever, the skin came off from his hands nearly .s et m 
plete as a pair of gloves. The specimen I saw was in 
this state. There was only a small rent on one of the 
fingers, I think on the left hand. So frequent had this 
circumstance occurred to the man, that it was usual for 
some physician or neighbour to engage from him the 
skin ol his hand a twelve-month or more previous to 
its coming off. I had seen nothing, where I found my- 
self so much at home, and to my liking, as at this party. 
I was the only non-resident in the company, and re- 
ceived more than my own share of attention. A number 
of rooms were thrown open, where the walks were 
hung, and the tables covered with the wonders and 
curiosities aforesaid. In another very spacious hall, a 
table was spread with every thing to tempt and satisfy 
the appetite. There was tea, coffee, wines and cakes, 
pies, pastry and confections. The company was in 
pairs and in parties, walking and talking, sitting and 
admiring, eating or drinking, just as fancy or feeling 
inclined. The lord and lady of the manor led me from 
room to room, introducing me to every group, party, 
and coterie. A lady asked me to write my name on 
the back of her card. This was only the beginning, 
not of sorrow but of scratching. The request — and 

14 



158 thorburn's journal. 

mine, and mine, reiterated by many, till the cards fell 
on the table before me, as thick as snow flakes on a 
winter's morning. A young lady presented her card — 
it was a very large one ; and by way of variety in the 
scene, a thought came into my head. I wrote it 
thus : — 

THE CARD. 



GRANT THORBURN 
& 

MISS ANNA SEYMOUR. 

t 



I wrote my name & — jus.t above her name on the 
face of the card. The card flew round the room crea- 
ting a laugh — all that was intended. 

This procuring of signatures is a very prevailing foi- 
ble among the good folks in Britain at this time. I was 
shown books by many, where I saw the signatures of 
"Washington, Bonaparte, Pitt, Fox, Sir W. Scott, &c. 
They are often procured at considerable trouble and 
expense. Sometimes by writing to the person whose 
name they wish, making some frivolous inquiry, and 
paying the postage. When the answer comes back, 
their end is attained ; they cut off the signature, and 
paste it in their book. If you are at their house, and 



thorburn's journal. 159 

they wish your name, you are requested to write it in 
their book. 

The company began to disperse, and I was sent home 
in a carriage at 2 o'clock A. M. The streets in London, 
except by the bank, the exchange and custom-house, 
are nearly as much crowded at midnight, as they are 
in the middle of the day ; but their fine police keeps 
all in order. 

Having heard much of the far-famed Mr. Irving, I 
went with a friend to judge for myself. Though I 
reached the door half an 1 Dur before the time appoint- 
ed, it was with much difficulty we could force an en- 
trance. By the time he got about the middle of his 
harangue, the crowd increased to a real mob. From 
sq eezing and jostling they soon came to blows, and 
for some minutes there was a real set-to. A party of 
the police, who are ever at hand, made a forcible entry, 
carried away half a dozen, shut the doors, and restored 
order. For some time I was in more danger, to all ap- 
pearance, than ever I had been either on land or water. 
When the fight commenced below, I stood at the top 
of the gallery stairs. A rush from the gallery pressed 
all before them downwards, and a rush from the door 
pressed all before them upwards — women screaming 
and fainting, men cursing, boys swearing ; some bawling 
for their hats, canes, and umbrellas; some singing out, 
take care of your money, pocket-books, &c. In the 
mean time, I was in danger of sufiocation, being in the 
heart of the crowd. I finally got hold of the banisters. 
There I could breathe ; but the danger appeared to in- 
crease. Another shout below, and another rush from 
above. The banisters began to crack. I expected 
next moment to be precipitated on the heads of the 
people twenty feet below, with some hundreds on my 



160 thorburn's journal. 

back. The police-men opened the doors, the crowd 
rusi.ed into the street, the passage was cleared, and I 
made my escape, resolving never to enter Mr. Irving' s 
chapel more. 

Irving' s discourse was neither a sermon nor a lecture, 
an exhortation nor an oration, but a rambling, incompre- 
hensible harangue, of high sounding and great swelling 
words, bombast and jingle ; words thrown out by the 
yard, without sense or meaning. And this he continued, 
as I learned afterwards, for upwards of two hours. — 
The substance of what he said is comprised in twenty 
or thirty scripture words, viz : "And when the day of 
Pentecost was fully come, they all spoke with tongues, 
and tongues sat on them like fire. Your sons, and your 
daughters shall prophecy, your young men shall see 
visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." — 
Dreamer, indeed, thought I. Now, you have only to 
get some long, lank, thin, pale-faced looking Yankee, 
with straight, sleek black hair, smoothly combed over 
his forehead, ears, neck, and shoulders — let him stand 
for the space of two whole hours, repeating the above 
scraps of texts, and that loo at the top of his lungs, then 
you may fancy to yourself, that you are just hearing- 
one of Mr. Irving's sermons, in St. Martin's Lane, Lon- 
don. There is no doubt but his mind is alienated ; but 
it is rather strange that he has collected about one 
hundred and fifty crazy mortals to become his deciples. 
The most conspicuous of his apostles is Mr. Drummond, 
the great London banker, a man whose income is esti- 
mated, by those who know him, to be not less than 
£30,000 sterling a year. However these things are 
neither new nor uncommon. I remember of seeing in 
Scotland, about the year 1783, a company of forty or fifty- 
men and women led out into the wilderness by a Mrs. 



THORBTJRN S JOURNAL. 161 

Buchan. They said they were travelling to Jernalem, 
from whence they were to get on the top of Mount 
Olivet, and then ascend to heaven. This woman had 
in her train a presbyterian minister, and a lawyer of 
eminent practice. These people never got farther than 
the coast however ; their funds got low, when each 
man returned to his own home. In late years too, 
Hannah Southcott led in her train, (in England,) a com- 
pany of men and women, some of them we~e very re- 
spectable. They were all engaged with her in some 
such wild goose chase, as the Buchanites in Scotland 
fifty years ago, and the Irvingites in London at the 
present day. 

On leaving such a scene, the only feeling which a 
serious and candid hearer could cherish, was one of 
anger, sympathy, and sincere sorrow, that such pitiful 
exhibitions of human weakness should be so held forth 
under the character of divine worship. The proceed- 
ings of this sect, since their first appearance, has given 
some extraordinary proofs of the wild and wayward 
wanderings of the human mind from the paths of rec- 
titude and reason when left to its own guidance. 

A few days before leaving London, at a dinner party, 
the conversation took a turn about the American pack- 
ets — their beauty, accommodations, swift sailing, &c. 
A lady in the company expressed a wish to see them. 
I told her I had engaged my passage in the ship Mon- 
treal, lying at St. Catharine's dock, and if agreeable I 
would be happy to accompany her on board. Next 
morning, according to appointment, at 11 o'clock A. 
M., she called at my lodgings in her own carriage, ac- 
companied by a young lady, her daughter. It was now 
the 6th of March, and a most beautiful day, the finest I 

14* 



162 thorburn's journal. 

had seen in England. On arriving at the ship, the 
seamen were lowering heavy casks into the hold with 
all the soul-stirring music of their usual song. The 
ladies looked aloft, from stem to stern, and threw their 
eyes among the forest of masts with astonishment. — 
(This was the first ship they had boarded.) Captain 
Champlir. (whose blood and bone is politeness itself) 
received them on board, and conducted us into the 
cabin. After showing them the gentlemen's and lady's 
apartments, cook and steward's conveniences, &c, he 
set before them wine, biscuit, and American ham. — 
They had never tasted such ham, never saw such 
beautiful wood, never thought there could be such a 
place on board of a ship — why it was more splendid 
than a parlour. Says I, " Madam, it is only the Ameri- 
can ships that show such handsome cabins. The 
Americans pride themselves on fine ships and cabins ; 
and perhaps there is no country known where such 
varieties of beautiful timber grows, as is produced in 
the American forests." When we came on shore, she 
observed, "Your captain must be an Englishman." — 
Says I, " Madam, what makes you think so ?" " Be- 
cause," says she, "he is as polite and dresses as gen- 
teel as any gentleman." Says I, "Madam, that man 
is a genuine bred Connecticut Yankee. But, madam, 
the American c ptains are all gentlemen; many of 
them have been- to college. It is their learning makes 
them build such fine ships, sail them so swiftly across 
the Atlantic, and fight them so well when necessary. — 
It was never heard, since the world began, that a British 
frigate struck to a frigate ii any nation after only fifteen 
minutes fighting, till the ate war, when they struck to 
the Americans." She smiled, and said, "They are a 
wonderfv> people." 



thorburn's journal. 163 

When you visit the docks at London or Liver- 
pool, you pass through gates. The carriage was 
waiting for us at the gate. Passing along, on our re- 
turn, I saw on the stern of a ship, the of 

Bristol, apparently about the same tonnage as the 
Montreal.. The tide being low, the deck was flush with 
the wharf, and of course easy of access. Says I, "Ma- 
dam, here is a fine British ship, if you please we will 
take a view of her cabin." " With all my heart," says 
she. We went on board, asked the officer if he would 
permit us to walk in the cabin. " You are welcome," 
says he. When we got to the foot of the stairs I walked 
first. She paused and looked in. I asked her to enter, 
" O, no," says she, " it will soil my clothes." When 
we got on shore — " Well, madam," says I, " you see 
there is a difference between these cabins?" " As 
much," says she, " as between my parlour and kitchen." 
I felt a little American pride at this moment. We now 
entered the carriage, drove to the Royal Bazar and 
other lounging places ; then to her mansion in Fick- 
adilly, where we partook of a cold cut and wine. — 
She was much gratified with what she had seen. — 
Said she had not spent three hours so much to her 
liking in many days. Never having been on board 
of a ship till that day, the novelty of the thing struck 
her exceedingly. We parted much pleased — she 
with having seen ships, and I with the favourable 
impression she had received of the American ships. 
I again entered her carriage, and was driven to my 
lodgings just in time for dinner. 

On the way home, I stopped the carriage for a 
few minutes to look at a juggler playing his tricks 
in a public lane near by Regent- street. He had 
collected around him, with the sound of a drum and 



164 thorburn's journal. 

tabor, a vast crowd. He was throwing balls high 
in the air, and receiving them on the point of a stick 
as they came down — and other dexterous pranks. I 
wondered how their police tolerated such a breach 
of decorum in so public a place. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Respect paid the Dead — Solemnity of their Funerals — 
Precautions against Resurrectionists — Anecdote of 
the Auld Wives of Leven. 

There is something very characteristic in the cus- 
toms, of Europe, with regard to the honours paid to the 
corpse of their dead. In America, and all warm cli- 
mates, the dead are generally buried almost before they 
are cold. In Europe they are kept from four to eight 
days. Relations, and even distant relations, will come 
forty and often fifty miles to attend the funeral of a 
friend; and if not invited, it is considered an a Tont. 
I remember an instance which happened in Scotland 
nearly fifty years ago. A cousin of a gentleman's wife 
died. They resided at a distance of forty miles. When 
the news arrived of the death and br v ial of the cousin, 
the lady was highly offended because she had not been 
invited to the funeral. She spoke long and loud on 
the subject. Her husband getting tired of the theme, 
by way of comfort, at length speaks out. "Never 
mind my dear," says he, " when you die I wont invite 
them." The lady looked seriously confounded, but 
said no more on the subject, being thus most matrimo- 
nially comforted. 



166 thorburn's journal. 

In Britain, every person attending a funeral comes 
dressed in a complete suit of black. They walk from 
the house to the grave in a* decent solemn manner. It 
is rare to see any engaged in conversation. I remember 
feeling desperately scandalized at the first funeral I saw- 
in New-York; the bell tolling* — the sexton first, wear- 
ing a blue coat; two ministers and pall-bearers with 
scarfs ; next followed the father and his sons, handker- 
chiefs to their eyes, and I really believe were in deep 
sorrow. Then followed about two hundred men, dressed 
in coats of all colours, talking, smiling, and conversing, 
with the same indifference as if it had been .he 4th of 
July procession. Says I to myself, the people here 
must be without feeling and without natural affection. 

In London, the funerals, even among the middling 
classes, make a most imposing show. The hearse and 
horses, all decorated with large and splendid black and 
white plumes, all nodding and floating in the breeze ; 
the mourning coaches, the drivers and footmen, the 
mutes and undertakers, wrapped in black cloth cloaks 
with white or black bands around their hats and hang- 
ing far down between their shoulders ; others walking 
before and on each side of the hearse in the same dress, 
with long black rods in their hands ; and as they are 
often hired to mourn by those who have no sorrow at 
the heart, they hang on a face of grief, which is the 
very picture of' melancholy itself. They generally 
bury between 10 and 11 o'clock A. M. I have seen a 
splendid funeral procession stopped in the middle of 
the street for nearly ten minutes by the crowd of carts, 



* This was the custom at that period. 



thorburn's journal. 167 

wagons, and carriages, which are continually rolling, 
day and night, over their busy streets. 

One morning I met on the pavement in the neighbor- 
hood of St. Paul's church, a most solitary funeral pro- 
cession. It was preceded by two undertakers with 
their black rods as usual. The pall was supported by six 
ladies, and followed by only eight more. There was 
no man following. They seemed to be all nearly or a 
little over forty years of age; and they were all clad in 
deep mourning. They looked to me like a company of 
widows conveying one of their sisters to the cold grave 
of her husband. Next to the coffin walked two of the 
oldest — one of them, more than all the rest, seemed sink- 
ing with sorrow. I thought she might have been the 
mother. Slow and solemn they moved along, while 
the throng opened on the right and left to let them 
pass. St. Paul's tremendous bell was tolling off, his 
loud and awful sounds. I thought of the dead march 
from a nunnery. I followed in the rear to view the 
closing scene. The mother stood by the side of the 
grave. The beautiful soothing lines of the burial ser- 
vice seemed to calm the tumult of her soul, and she 
stood with composure. The corpse was now let down 
into the grave. She stooped and took a last look. — 
The sextons commenced filling in the clods of the 
valley. The hollow sound from the coffin struck on 
her heart; her tears gushed out afresh — like water's 
lately pent up * # * I walked from the spot, and 
mixed with the multitude. 

The dread of the resurrection-men has induced many 
of the parishes in England and Scotland to erect towers 
in their burying-grounds, where a watch is kept all 
night ; and many, even of the poorer class, bury their 
dead in cast iron coffins. I saw numbers of those 



168 thorburn's journal. 

coffins piled up in the corners of the church-yards.-— 
The lid is fastened on with strong screws. 

The following authentic anecdote will illustrate the 
feelings of the common people on this (to them) im- 
portant subject, and being written in the exact dialect 
of that section of the country, it will be amusing to 
some readers. 

Anecdote of the Old Wives of Leven. 

Leven lies in the parish of Scoony, in Fifeshire, 
Scotland. The burial-ground is situated about half a 
mile from the village. The writer of these sheets will 
never forget the shock he got on preparing to enter 
this little cemetery. He observed on a long pole over- 
hanging the road, a board with this laconic and fearfully 
emphatic inscription, " Take notice — Any person en- 
tering this church-yard willbe shot." As there was no 
exception specified in favour of either peripatetic au- 
thors, or any other harmless class of mortal, he of 
course abstained from his intended meditations among 
the tombs ; though not without resolving to make the 
unapproachability of the burial-ground of Scoonie a 
little more extensively known. 

The reader will have no difficulty in referring this 
formidable advertisement to its proper cause — the alarm 
which every where prevails regarding resurrection-men. 
This is a subject of some, importance. The fear of 
nocturnal attempts upon the tombs of their friends may 
be said to have succeeded in the minds of the common 
people. The old superstition regarding ghosts and 
fairies is rife every where, but observable mostly in 
sequestered parts of the country. If the people be in 
the habit of seeing " strange gentlemen" riding and 



JOURNAL. 169 

racing from all parts, to view some notorious curiosity 
or beautiful scenery — as a stupendous rock or waterfall, 
they regard them as only " daft," and seem inclined to 
congratulate themselves on being exempted by Provi- 
dence from the manias which afflct the better orders of 
society. But should the case be otherwise, and one or 
two view-hunters come to their place in a twelve-month, 
these are, as a matter of course, understood to have 
"an e'e to the kirk-yard." 

A young man having lately entered a church-yard 
in a secluded part of the country, with the view of 
whiling away an hour in perusing the epitaphs, a 
decent-looking villager came up and addressed him in 
something like the following style : " I'll tell you what, 
my man, if ye ha' na ony particular business to deteen 
ye i' the toon, ye had just as good gang awa. I've 
come to tell ye this as a freend ; and, deed, I wad ad- 
vise ye to pat affas cannily as ye can ; the folk '11 be 
risin, and ye ken that wadna maybe be very agreeable." 
It was a good while before the intruder understood the 
man's drift; but when he did perceive its meaning, he 
was fain to take the hint for the preservation of his 
person. 

This case, however, is nothing to one which occurred 
in the course of a tour undertaken for the sake of this 
work at Torpichen, a village in West Lothian, about 
five miles from a public road. I sought out this place 
for the purpose of seeing the remains of the preceptory 
of the Knights of St. John. The ruins lie in the church- 
yard ; and I made no scruple at entering the little en- 
closure in order to inspect them. While engaged in 
this labour of curiosity, I was accosted by an old woman 
with a very civil observation upon the fineness of the 
day. She then hinted a supposition that I was a stran- 

15 



170 thorburn's journal. 

ger in the country side. I confessed the fact. "Hae 
ye nae freends here abouts ?" she inquired. "None." 
" Od," said she, " we dinna like to see fouk comin about 
our kirk-yard that ha'e na business wi? them. May I 
speer (ask) what ye're came here for?'' Before I could 
answer this question, another old lady came up, and 
apparently resolved to treat me with less delicacy, 
cried with a loud screeching voice, " Faith, Billy, ye 
needna think for to come here to play your pranks ; 
we've as gude a watch here as they ha'e doun at Li-th- 
gow : there's the house they stay in. And they hae a 
gun ; Lord, gin ye get a touch o' their gun, ye wad sune 
be a subjeck yeer'sell ! Gae wa wi' ye ; tr y athgate ; 
they'll maybe no be sae strick there." " Hout, Katie," 
said the first speaker in a softer voice, " the gentleman's 
maybe no come wi' ony sic intention ; he'll just ha' 
come to see the auld kirk." " Fient a auld kirk is he 
come to see," resumed the other ; " he's fonder o' kirk- 
yards than kirks, I'se warrant him. Od, woman, d'ye 
no see, he's just ane o' thae genteel kind o' chaps that 
gang after that tred." " Ay," said a third hag, " and 
div ye observe, he's sutten doun stride-legs on auld 
Johny Watt's grave, as gin he were already making 
sure o' him. Oh the blackguard !" Other old women 
were now gathering round me, alike alive to the horror 
of my supposed character ; and I could compare the 
scene of vituperation and disorder which ensued to no- 
thing but the gathering of harpies round iEneas. — 
Suffice it to say, that I had at last to make a precipitate 
retreat from Torphichen, in order to avoid the death 
of St. Stephen. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Parting with my Father — Conclusion — Friends Part- 
ing — Yankee's in London — Matrimonial Fracas — 
Voyage Home. 

In this world every thing has its pleasures and its 
pains. In the cabin we were just long enough together 
to make us feel the pain of parting. When the long 
looked for day arrives, and we step on shore at our 
desired haven, then it is that the eye which expected 
to dance and brighten with delight on the scenes and 
novelties around, is often dimmed in tears, when we 
part with those whose faces we shall look on no more 
for ever. On landing, I bore my share in this feeling. 

During the four months and fifteen days I sojourned 
in Britain, this making and parting with friends was a 
matter of very frequent occurrence. In some cases, of 
course, the attachment was more strong, and the part- 
ing more keenly felt. But there seems to be something 
in our nature that revolts at the idea of a parting for 
ever. There is a hope, a well-grounded and a rational 
hope, held out in the gospel, and there only, that friends 
will meet to part no more. Allowing (as the vain phi- 
losopher says) it is all delusion, it is a very soothing, 
and a very consoling, and a very innocent delusion ; 



172 thorburn's journal. 

and it is one which no man of sound mind (whatever 
he may profess in words) can shake from his soul, viz : 
the hopes of meeting them he holds most dear in some 
improved state of existence hereafter. Depraved pro- 
pensity may wish for annihilation, but the soul still 
says / never die. 

When I came to part with my father for the last 
time, I saw before me a living proof that the hope of the 
gospel can support nature in the most trying situations. 
He is now in his ninety-first year. His eyes are dim, so 
that he cannot discern objects around. I dreaded this 
day of parting. I knew it was for the last time, and 
put it off as long as possible ; but time lingers not, the 
hour came, and the coach was at the door. I held his 
hand, it trembled not, neither did his voice falter. — 
" Now," says he, " we part, and except we meet at the 
right hand of Christ, it will be for ever. Go, and may 
he who has led and fed me all my life long, go with 
you." At this moment he stood like Jacob, leaning 
upon the top of his staff. Thus we separated, on the 
same spot on which we had parted forty years be- 
fore. 

In the course of my walks through the streets and 
lanes of the cities of London, Edinburgh, &c, I now 
and then met some of our young Yankee's, sons, not 
of the prophets, but of the democrats. Young repub- 
licans, living like sons of the nobles, bang up, in a first 
rate hotel in Bond-street, paying one guinea per day 
for board, six shillings sterling for a bottle of wine, 
and treating a set of fellows (as great fools as them- 
selves) with this same costly wine. I knew the fathers 
of some of these boys forty years ago, when they were 
journeymen mechanics. Now they have become rich, 
they send their sons to college. The boys learn to 



THORBTJRN'S JOURNAL. 173 

drive tandem, smoke segars, and drink champaign, 
whereby they will spend as much money at one sitting, 
as it would have cost their grandfathers, seventy years 
ago, to have supported a wife and two children for a 
twelve-month. Then they must needs go to Europe. 
Just as if they could not learn mischief enough in New- 
York or Philadelphia, but they must see life in London 
and Paris, that they may get initiated in all the mid- 
night revels of noble blackguards and royal fools. In 
London they learn the works of the devil ; but in Paris 
they learn hell itself. Better would it have been for 
some of these young men had their fathers never risen 
higher than a carrier of brick-bats. I cannot see any 
one good purpose it serves, or one good thing they can 
learn. In this country there is schools for the prophets, 
the merchant, and the lawyer, where every thing may 
be acquired that is wanted for all the useful purposes 
of life ; and Europe can learn us no more. And there 
is the expense too, and that is no trifle. I found every 
thing in the stages, hotels, and on the roads, rather 
more than double what we are charged for the same 
accommodations in this country* I was just six months 
absent from New- York ; I was lodged by my relations, 
and fed by my friends in every town where I went. I 
slept only four nights in hotels during my journey. I 
practised a strict order of economy, but not so as to in- 
terfere with my health, comfort, or reputation — for in- 
stance, I always rode inside, dined with my fellow- 
passengers, and when I had to put up, it was always at 
the best hotel in the place ; but then I never suffered 
them to treat me, and you may be sure I never offered 
to treat them; yet, notwithstanding all these advantages 
and precautions, my expenses, including passage mo- 
ney out and home, amounted to five hundred an-d 

15* 



174 thorburn's journal. 

twenty-two dollars. Now I feel pretty well assured in 
my own mind, that some of those chaps I saw spent 
four times as much in the same time, and all to no pur- 
pose that I could see under the sun — (for my own part, 
I saw all, and done business which paid for all.) Now 
I thought how much better it would have been to have 
kept those boys at home, learned them some useful oc- 
cupation, and then given them the two thousand dollars 
to commence business. Young men who are studying 
medicine or surgery, I think, are much to be commend- 
ed for going abroad to gain information. In walking 
the hospitals of London, Leyden, and Paris, (and as 
far as I could learn Edinburgh is inferior to none,) they 
may add much to their stock in those sciences ; but to 
see a set of idle, brainless, senseless young fops, flour- 
ishing about spending money — drawing bills upon 
their fathers, and coming back ten times more the 
children of folly than when they went away, is enough 
to put common sense to the blush. This is republican 
simplicity with a witness. 

March 8th. — Having now finished my business, I 
breakfasted with my friend, and went on board the 
ship Montreal at 9 o'clock A. M. She was hauling 
out ; the captain was on shore, and the pilot giving 
orders. Here one of those matrimonial tragedies took 
place, which are frequently acted at the sailing of the 
American packets. 

A lady, with an officer, came on board, having a ha- 
beas corpus warrant, in the kings name, ordering all 
his faithful lieges to bring forth the body of John Doe, 
or Richard Roe, &c. The officer and lady descended 
into the steerage, where one hundred and thirty pas- 
sengers were stowing away their baggage, when lo ! on 
the top of a chest sat the said John, and snugly by his 



thorburn's journal. 175 

side sat also a second cousin. The lady claimed her 
husband, "as by the words of the ceremony," says she, 
''we are one. I am determined that ail the waters of 
the Atlantic shall not part us asunder." The man 
looked like a fool : his partner and the officer escorted 
him on deck, and marched him in triumph between them 
up the wharf. The ladies in the steerage now com- 
menced hooting and hissing the simple young woman. 
She came on deck, sat down on a block of wood, and 
began to cry. Says I, " young woman, there is no use 
to sit whinging- there ; if the captain comes on board he 
will start you on shore; you better call a porter, pack 
up your movables, and go to your friends — if they know 
nothing of the matter, you may keep your own secret; 
but take care you don't get in such another scrape, as 
perhaps you wont get out so easy." It was no sooner 
said than done : in came the porter — away went kegs, 
bags and baggage ; and away went she — we saw no 
more of them. 

. We now commenced squeezing down the Thames 
amongst a thicket of ships, brigs, and craft of all de- 
scriptions ; so close were they stowed for the space of 
six miles, it w T as just like hauling out of a wharf. We 
made Portsmouth on the 11th, at 6 o'clock P. M. Here 
and at Cowes lay some hundreds of vessels waiting a 
wind. Some of them had been wind-bound for a 
month. But now the wind (which had been blowing 
from the west for nearly five months) came out from 
the east, (in accordance with our most sanguine wishes.) 
Now the cheering sound " out studding-sails" resounded 
from the deck. The breeze freshens, and away we 
shoot at the rate of ten knots an hour. We overhauled 
and passed everything in the channel, amongst them a 
fine East Indiaman, all sails set, and a steamer lashed to 



176 thorburn's journal. 

each of her sides ; yet, notwithstanding all these arti- 
ficial helps, we shoot ahead, and leave her to read 
"Montreal of New York" on our stern. 
. 12th. — Half past 10 o'clock P. M. All have turned 
in excepting the watch. I sit on the deck wrapped in 
my cloak, and wrapped in my thoughts, watching the 
swelling of the sails by a strong east wind, and thinking 
of time that is past. I am just entering for the fifth 
time the Atlantic Ocean. It is five months and three 
days since I left my family and friends. Goodness and. 
mercy have followed me hitherto through every step of 
my journey. I have received the kindest attention 
from friends and from strangers — have encountered no 
accident, nor met with a disappointment — have lost 
nothing by the way save only one pair of gloves* and 
one pocket handkerchief ; and now my face is again 
homeward, the wind is fair, and every appearance of a 
prosperous voyage. 

A few days before leaving London I was in company 

with Sir A B . He gave me a box of his 

own patent pills to prevent sea sickness. I thought of 
the epetaph which a Spaniard directed to be placed on 
his gravestone : — 

" 7 was well — took physic, and died." 
So the pills are untouched to this day. 



* Something may be learned from this pair of gloves. I lost 
the glove belonging to the left hand. I then bought another pair 
of the same colour and quality. In about ten days thereafter I 
lost the glove belonging to the right hand ; so by saving the odd 
glove, and purchasing the next pair of the same color and quality, 
I still had a complete pair left. Many a pair of gloves might be 
thus matched and saved, if people only thought of saving the odd 
ones, and comparing colours. 



thorburn's journal. 177 

From the 12th to the 25th fair winds and fine 
weather. On that day it blew a gale — hatches button- 
ed down, dead lights, deck lights, and all light shut out 
and shut up, the winds and the sea roaring, the waves 
breaking, over the ship, noise of men and officers on 
deck, women's hearts, and men's too, failing them be- 
cause of fear. At 7 o'clock P. M., He who holds the 
winds in his fist and the waters in the hollow of his 
hand, SPOKE:— 

" The storm was changed into a calm 

At his command and will ; 
So that the waves which raged before 

Now quiet are and still." 

At the height of the gale, a cask on deck broke from 
its lashings, rolled over one of the seamen and broke 
his leg. It was well we had two surgeons among our 
passengers.* This gale was altogether a grand and 
terrific scene, and showed how impotent is man. 

Nothing remarkable till April 5th, when, at 10 A. M., 
we saw land. We were now 24 days out, and would 
have got in that afternoon, but had overreached our 
port to the south. We beat back against a strong N. 
E. wind, which took us two days to accomplish ; so on 
the 7th, at sundown, we anchered within the narrows. 
Thus completing a pleasant passage of 26 days from 
land to anchor. 

It is at such a moment as this — the anchor drops, the 
sails are furled, the ship's at rest ; the passengers are 
gazing and straining their eye-balls to learn something 



* The man had cvory attention and soon got welL 



178 

of the soil that from henceforward is to give them sup- 
port. You stand on the windlass. Your home is in 
view. In fancy you see the very roof that covers all 
you hold most dear on earth. I say it is at such a 
moment as this you would give the universe to know 
that all is well. 

You hear nothing. You see nothing on the right 
hand or the left. Your eye is fixed on the object ahead; 
and your conversation is within. It is nine weeks 
since the date of my last letter. Are they alive? May 
not their habitation be a heap of ruins ? &c. Then busy 
meddling fancy raises for herself phantoms most hor- 
rible. Your throat is dry. Your tongue is parched. 
Your words are only half uttered. This feeling of 
suspense, for the hour before meeting is more intensely 
keen than is the day of parting, and all the long months 
of separation. 

However, in half an hour after coming to anchor, an 
acquaintance of my family came on board, and set my 
unworthy doubts at rest. He knew them all, and all 
were well. 

His business w r as with the captain. So I lit my pipe 
and walked on deck, repeating in my mind the one 
hundred and third Psalm. It calmed the multitude of 
my thoughts within me. 



CONCLUSION. 

In travelling from port to town, and from town to 
village ; from hall to rooms, and from rooms to cellars, 
the only object of sincere observation I think is man. 
To learn what is man, this strange contradictive, in- 
consistent being man. Could you congregate the mil- 
lions that inhabit this globe, so sure as you would not 
find two faces exactly to correspond, so sure would 
you not find two men whose views, aims, and ends 
were exactly the same on any subject ; and yet we are 
continually persecuting our neighbours with our sword, 
our tongue, or our pen, because he cannot see as we 
see, into the same subject. I have visited the hall's of 
the noble, and the cellars of the simple. I have dined 
in the parlour with the great, and in Billingsgate lunch 
among fish-women. On the sea, in the ship ; on the 
land, in the carriage. I find them all the same incom- 
prehensible mortals — thinking one thing and speaking 
another — professing one thing and practising another. 
On the continent, nearly one half of the population is 
composed of soldiers, priests, monks, friars, Jesuits 
and beggars. In England they have noblemen and 
gentlemen in abundance — bishops, curates, rectors and 
deans, soldiers and parish paupers ; in fact the poor 



180 thorbitrn's journal. 






laws have turned every parish into a sort of public alms- 
house. In Scotland they have bishops, curates, &c. ; 
but then they stand on their own foundation. They 
are the same there as other dissenters ; the people are 
not compelled to pay them, neither have they any poor 
rates ; those who are sick or destitute, are supported 
in alms-houses ; those who are lazy, are shut up in 
correction houses and compelled to work. In Ireland 
they are oppressed with priests, poverty, ignorance, 
and tithes. 

With regard to governments, those arbitrary mon- 
archs who dispose of men's lives, persons, and property 
at their pleasure — they are contrary to reason, religion, 
or common sense ; and such are most of those on the 
continent. But the government of Britain, were it free 
from the shackles and burthens of the church, is in 
many respects better than our own ; at least I have a 
right to think so, in this country of free thinking and 
free speaking. In Britain, the lives, persons, and pro- 
perty of men are as well protected by law as they are in 
this country ; and probably property is better protect- 
ed — for there property, to a certain extent, is repre- 
sented — here it is not. Here the votes of the pauper 
puts the men into office, who tax, assess, cut up and 
divide your property, while they have nothing to tax 
and nothing to pay. This may be law, but it is not 
equity. In Britain they have a new king made to their 
hand every twenty, thirty, or fifty years, (George III. 
reigned fifty,) but in America we have a new king to 
make every four years. To be sure the salary of the 
British king is very great — greater, perhaps, than all 
the officers of our civil government put together ; but 
then the trouble and expense of making our kings so 
frequently, more than counterbalances to the country 
all the expense of the British kings. 



thorburn's journal. 181 

In this country, as soon as we have one king placed 
on the throne (knowing his reign will be short) we 
commence making a new one immediately. Then 
all the electoral colleges, from east to west, from 
north to south, are put in motion — meetings every 
week, in some places every night, in every town, 
village, hamlet, district, city, and ward on the con- 
tinent. One million of men, at the least calculation, 
are employed three hours every night in the year, 
(Sabbath not excepted by many,) some making tickets, 
some forging lies, some making speeches, and some 
forging slander, and many, very many, getting drunk. 
Now only think of this, one million of men three hours 
per night. One man's time is worth twelve and a half 
cents per hour. Now calculate this, and you will find 
that our king costs a vast deal more expense to us than 
the king of England costs his people. But this is 
not all ; this is only the beginning of trouble — for all 
the lies, slanders, speeches, tickets, handbills, and 
showbills are yet to be printed. New newspapers are 
set up by each party — the printer must be paid, the 
editor must be paid, the bill-sticker must be paid, 
and there too is the tavern-keeper, he must be paid — 
and his is a heavy bill, because each party hire men 
and give them money to fill others drunk, provided 
they will vote for their ticket; and even members of 
temperance societies will give money to buy drink for 
others, (though they may not drink themselves,) — for 
in election week, men think they may do what they 
please, and say what they please. Now see what a 
vast amount of time and money ig here lost. I hare 
known one gentleman subscribe $500 for his own hand 
to support the election of his party. Were we able to 
ascertain all those sums of money spent at elections, I 

16 



182 THORBURN'S JOURNAL. 

do think we would find that a new president costs as 
mueh as a new king; besides there is the unhappy- 
spirit of contention which never stops, and every year 
seems to grow hotter — families are divided, brethren 
are separated — towns, cities and villages are divided 
against themselves. If our next door neighbour refuses 
to think as we think, we will not hire his cart, we will 
not buy his boots or his shoes, his bread or his beer, his 
soap or his candles ; in short, we would starve him to 
death because he differs from us in opinion ; and this is 
what we call supporting the freedom of speech and 
liberty of thinking. 

In some parts of Europe, when they read our jour- 
nals, and see them filled the year round with election 
meetings, they think we do little else in America but 
make kings, priests, and presidents. 






APPENDIX. 

A word to the critic and I have done. I hold them 
all (as WASHINGTON told the democrats) as a set of 
self-created, blockheads,* meddling with other people's 



* I think it was in 1794, in his opening speech to Congress 
that Washington, speaking of the whiskey mobs and unsettled 
state of the country, assigned as a cause the formation of Tamma- 
ny and Democratic Societies. He called them self-created societies. 
The bucktails never got over this. (The wigwam in those days 
was kept by Martling, on the spot where the Tract Society house 
now stands.) Runners were sent out ; the council fires were 
lighted that same night; citizen Mooney was Grand Sachem; 
long talks were made, and Washington denounced. One imported 
patriot, just six months from Donnochadee, in his republican 
wrath, styled Washington a hoary headed traitor! Yes, gentle- 
men, these ears of mine heard this. There were some hundreds of 
Americans in the room. I wondered they did not pull the potatoe 
head from his shoulders. But foreigners then, as well as now, 
ruled the country. There was citizen Genet, the sans culotte 
ambassador, appealing from the American government to the 
mobites. This man, supported by American and imported 
patriots, was trying to jerk the reigns from the hands of him who 
but lately reigned in his stately stead to receive the sword of 
Comwallis. 

Washington had hard work with the democrats in those days. 



184 thorburn's journal. 

affairs, and forgetting their own. If the public are 
fools enough to buy books full of nonsense, why that's 
no concern of theirs. My book and myself got a 
terrible shaking from these fellows in London last year. 
Some of them said I spoke about Providence, as if there 
was not another being in the world worthy of his notice 
but myself; and seemed to insinuate that I, being so 
insignificant, was hardly worth his looking at, &c. I 
cared not the turning of a straw what they said. I 
know there are millions of beings in the universe more 
small and despised than myself, and yet they are the 
objects of his special care. Borne were highly offended 
because I drew a comparison between the British and 
American ships of war favourable to the latter. Others 
said I was a stiff bigoted Scotch presbyterian covenan- 
ter. I plead guilty to the first charge — but I never 
was a covenanter. 

Just for amusement I went to see one of these chaps. 
I know they write not from ill will, but to fill up their 
magazines and reviews. He was a good-natured sensible 
mortal. We spent an agreeable hour ; but the best of 
the story was, he could not define the meaning of 
covenanter. I told him he was just about as w 7 ise as 
some of the troopers in the regiment of Claverhouse, 



No other man could have kept them in order. He had Hamilton, 
Jay, and all the revolutionary worthies, with Truth on his side ; 
so he stood his ground. When Jefferson came in, and with him 
all the friends of the people, times were altered. They sold our 
little navy for the price of the anchors, by the way of protecting 
our trade and coast. So they have kept the pot boiling their own 
way ever since; and as a majority of the sovereign people desire 
to have it bo, why it is none of my business. 



thorburn's journal. 185 

of which you have read in Scott's history of Old Mor- 
tality. One day two of them were sent out to scour 
the hills in search of whigs; they fell in with a poor 
shepherd, tending his flocks by the side of a brook, and 
reading his Bible. He was so intent on the subject, 
that they were on him before he had time to slip the 
book under his plaid. (You will observe it was part 
of their orders to arrest every one where they found a 
Bible in the house.) " What book have you got there ?" 
says one of them. " The Divine Oracles" says the 
shepherd. " Divine Oracles," says the trooper, looking 
in the face of his fellow. " Do you know the book ?" 
" Never heard of such a book, (in those days, perhaps, 
not a man in the regiment could read,) says the second 
trooper. "What does it tell about?" says the first 
trooper. " Oh," says the shepherd, " that's muckle ma^er 
(much more) than I can tell ye ; but there is ye'a lang 
(one long) story in't," aboot king Pharah, and Joseph 

and his brethren." " D n Joseph," says the troop 

er; "Is" there any thing about the covenants in it?" — 
" Oh yes," says the shepherd, " there's some bits o' 
stories aboot the covenant o' warks, an' the covenant o' 
grace." " D n your grace!" says the trooper, (get- 
ting tired.) "Do you renounce the covenant?" (This 
was the test.) " Whilk o' them do you mean ?" says 
the shepherd. The trooper again applied to his fellow. 
He could not tell. " Any one which you like," says 
they. " I renounce the covenant o' warks, an 1 a de- 
pendence ont' from this day and for ever," says the 

shepherd. " A true tory, by G ," says they, and 

rode off. My friend of the review laughed well at the 
ignorance of himself and countrymen. We adjourned 
to, not a tavern to drink wine, but to his house in 
Parliament-street, where we drank tea, and spent an 



186 

agreeable evening with the family. He accompanied 
me to my lodgings. On the way, going through the 
crowd, side by side when we could, or Indian file 
as we might, a young man in a hurry pushed me 
against a dandy. He turned and cursed me for a 

Quaker son of a b h. I thought my coat had 

saved my hide, as Franklin's spectacles saved his 
eyes. 

By the by, I was told that those reviewers are 
often hired by the same publisher, one to write up 
and another to write down their books. By this 
means the public begin to wonder, and are anxious 
to see what sort of book it is, and so they sell. 

I have no doubt but it is true, for in London they 
resort to every sort of device to draw attention. One 
day a man, standing at the corner of a street, put into 
ray hand a card headed 



DON'T BELIEVE IT," 



James Lancaster has not removed from No. 223 Strand, 
but continues to serve out to his customers, &c. &c. — 
Many have on their sign boards, under their name, the 
number of years they have done business in that house : 
as John Thomas, Wine Dealer, since 1794. Thus 
signifying that he is a man of steady habits to reside 
and do business in the same house for. forty years. I 
saw some stating that father and sons had done 
business on the same spot for one hundred years and 
upwards. In Paternoster Row, I was in a book es 
tablishment where the same firm had existed for two 
centuries and more. 



thorburn's journal. 187 

In New-York we get through our business with 
more expedition. As far as I can recollect, there is 
only one house in existence that done business in the 
city when I first saw it forty years ago. 



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